Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL BILL

Lords Amendments agreed to.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time upon Thursday next.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Live Animals (Export for Slaughter)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about his plans to implement the O'Brien Report on the export of live animals.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I would refer the hon. Member to the replies given to the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and others on 23rd May.—[Vol. 874, c. 588–90.]

Mr. Ridley: In extending my best wishes to the hon. Gentleman on his appointment, may I ask whether he is aware that it is highly desirable that the export of live animals be restarted in the light of the fact that an expert committee has now decided that there is no reason why it should not, subject to safeguards? Will he, therefore, take action, because this will greatly help farmers in this country who are in dire distress as a result of the present Government's inactivity on agriculture?

Mr. Bishop: I appreciate the hen. Gentleman's concern and the concern that has been expressed by others in the country, but he will recall that the House decided in July of last year that there should be a suspension of the export of animals for slaughter and as stores, and the O'Brien Committee was set up and reported only in March of this year. My Department called for comments on that report by 24th May, and the comments are being considered. I think it would be the wish of the House that in the meantime the suspension should continue.

Mr. Ovenden: Will my hon Friend give an assurance that, in view of the appalling cruelties involved in this practice in the past, such trade will not be resumed unless there are not only adequate safeguards but adequate methods of enforcing such safeguards?

Mr. Bishop: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern about this matter. At present, the comments of the numerous organisations in the light of the O'Brien Report are being considered. The ban is consistent with the present EEC regulations. Until we have looked at the whole matter in some depth—and that involves checking facilities on the other side of the Channel and elsewhere—and until the review has been undertaken properly, we see no reason why we should change our policy.

Sugar Supplies

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he will take to deal with the projected shortfall of sugar for domestic consumption early next year; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Jim Spicer: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to ensure an adequate supply of sugar in the autumn and winter, following a partial failure of the sugar beet crop in the United Kingdom.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Fred Peart): I see no reason to anticipate any shortage of supplies over the next six months, given the steps that have been and are being taken by the Government, the refining companies and users to make good from other sources shortfalls in normal supplies from the West Indies.

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that an estimated shortfall of between 600,000 and 800,000 tons is likely next year? In the light of that information, will he say what negotiations he has had with the Australians to ensure the continued access of their product to this market? Will he also say whether, in view of this projected shortfall next year, he will reconsider bringing United Kingdom domestic prices into line with Community prices, to give domestic agricultural producers the confidence to increase their acreage in the next agricultural year?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman is quite right to estimate a shortfall next year. That is why I have had, and am having now, talks with the Caribbean signatories, and, indeed, all signatories, of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. I opened the conference yesterday and bilateral talks are continuing. I am also having bilateral talks with Australia. Naturally, we would look at the price question in relation to sugar beet if the situation changed.

Mr. Lipton: Will my right hon. Friend note the fact—which may or may not be unrelated to the possible shortfall in sugar supplies—that the cost of saccharin has substantially increased in the last few months?

Mr. Peart: That may well be so, but I am concerned with sugar, which I think is a better product.

Mr. Spicer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an indication whether that shortfall might not be made up, particularly in terms of our sugar beet factories, by importation of sugar beet from within the Community?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman must agree that my predecessor and his Government gave a pledge to the Commonwealth countries in relation to 1·4 million tons. That is why we are now trying to have discussions to find out what can be achieved. I would rather leave it at that.

Mr. Spearing: Does my right hon. Friend agree that any increase of sugar beet from the Continent would prejudice the employment of people engaged in the cane sugar refining industry in this country? Will he say whether any arrange

ments with Australia could, perhaps, assist other Commonwealth territories, in respect of a buffer arrangement, at least to reproduce in some measure some of the advantages of the old Commonwealth Sugar Agreement?

Mr. Peart: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning refineries. That is an important part of our industry and is related to cane sugar supplies. I have repeatedly stated my views about Australian sugar. I am anxious to have association and agreement with Australia.

Mr. Pym: In his original answer the right hon. Gentleman said there would be no shortfall in the next six months, but conceded, in answer to a supplementary question, that there would be a shortage next year. We are glad that he is having consultations with Commonwealth suppliers. How much of the quota does he expect to receive next year? Will he make a statement within the next few weeks that he will make the growing of beet in the United Kingdom a more profitable activity next year, so that farmers may plan in time and thus ensure a large crop?

Mr. Peart: I shall look sympathetically and carefully at the question of the home production of sugar beet. I can say no more than that. The matter is continually under review. We have had discussions with the unions on matters of this kind. On the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, it is much too early to make a statement about what will happen as a result of the conference. The conference is proceeding and this afternoon I shall be meeting representatives of the various countries which have signed the agreement. Until I have had these talks I shall be unable to make an announcement.

Pâte de Foie Gras

Mrs. Joyce Butler: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will introduce a ban on the import of pâté de foie gras in view of the cruelty often involved in its production.

Mr. Bishop: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given on 8th April to a Question by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Drake (Miss Fookes).—[Vol. 872, c. 17.]

Mrs. Butler: Since these birds overeat naturally, will my hon. Friend say why this most repulsive mechanical forced feeding is still permitted and whether any regulations in the EEC can prevent inadvertent cruelty by hundreds of operators who have no knowledge of animal pathology? Will he use such influence as he has to persuade the EEC to end this most distasteful practice instead of perpetuating it by regulation? In the meantime, will he suspend imports?

Mr. Bishop: I have an interest in this matter, because one of the Questions I had to withdraw on Monday was on this subject. For that reason I have gone into the matter a little more deeply than might otherwise have been the case. I am sure that many hon. Members share my hon. Friend's concern about this matter, and we are aware that it is being studied by Council of Europe welfare experts. I have inquired about the representation my Department has made on this and about the part it has taken in studying the methods used. I understand that the practices shown in a leaflet issued by an animal welfare society which is, quite rightly, concerned about these matters are not standard practice in France. A ban would have to be agreed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and would be contrary to our international agreements.
The matter is being pursued and I hope that we shall be able to use our influence internationally to come to some agreements. A ban would not solve the problem. It would imply only that we were pure whilst leaving other people to perform practices which might possibly be contrary to animal welfare interests in France and Britain.

Miss Fookes: Will the Minister please pursue his previous inquiries as though he were still a private Member, and not allow himself to be seduced by the blandishments of the Ministry of Agriculture? Will he make detailed inquiries, as I am making them? I shall present my results to him in due course.

Mr. Bishop: My Ministry does not set out to seduce anyone, much less Bishops. I have pursued this matter with my officials in some depth, and if the hon. Member wishes to submit any further evidence to me I shall certainly consider the matter. In the meantime, we are satisfied that

there is no undue cruelty, and that France and Britain are subject to international laws on animal welfare and safety.

Livestock Industry (Support)

Sir David Renton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is aware that cattle and pig producers still find that the price of feedingstuffs is too high and that market prices are too low; and whether he will take urgent and special steps to deal with this situation, pending the arrival of the coming grain harvest.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is aware that, compared with the figures for the same period a year earlier, the slaughtering of animals between 19th January and 13th April 1974 show the following increases; cows and bulls 26 per cent., calves 81 per cent., ewes and rams 25 per cent., sows and boars 49 per cent.; what has caused these increases; and what action he proposes to take to reverse this trend.

Mr. Pym: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now make a statement explaining how he intends to fulfil his undertaking to sustain the beef market.

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the beef industry in the South-West and Cornwall.

Mr. Peart: I would refer hon. Members to my statement in the House on 26th June.

Sir D. Renton: We are puzzled to know when the arrangements for improving the beef situation will come into force. Will the right hon. Gentleman say when that will be? On pigs, is he aware that between 1st April and 15th June the number of sows and boars slaughtered was 106,000, which was 36 per cent. more than last year? This trend is continuing, with results that will be disastrous for consumers and producers. What is the Minister planning to do about it?

Mr. Peart: I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman read and understood what I was trying to achieve and


what I hope to achieve also in the Community when I go there very soon. I have here a statement from the Scottish NFU which welcomes my statement and the action I have taken. We are putting a floor in the market. We have started to instigate certification procedures and we have given a subsidy on pigs of £30 million.

Sir J. Langford-Holt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what he said about pigs may be important; but an extremely dangerous situation is arising, in that breeding herds are being slaughtered? That may be a temporary problem in some cases, but if the slaughtering continues the problem will be carried forward for years to come.

Mr. Peart: Slaughtering took place long before I ever became a Minister. I believe that our attempt to restore confidence by injecting national aid and subsidy was right. Added to that, I believe that my appeal for a reduction in the costs of feedingstuffs was the right one, and I am glad to say that the industry responded. I hope that the hon. Member will not talk the industry down.

Mr. Thorne: A number of small livestock producers in the Preston—South Ribble area are suffering considerably from the increased cost of raw materials, tools and other farming commodities. Will my right hon. Friend give some information that would encourage them to believe that their prospects for the future are likely to improve under this Government rather than deteriorate?

Mr. Peart: I believe that our desire for a long-term agricultural policy is right. We have initiated discussions with the unions concerned. Our stance in Europe, where we have resisted the intervention policy on beef production, was the correct approach from our point of view, and the farming community, particularly in Scotland, feels that we have done something positive. In addition the decision not to end the lime subsidy, which will benefit small producers, has been welcomed by the industry. The Conservatives were prepared to let it go by the board.

Mr. Pym: I do not accept any of the right hon. Gentleman's last comments. Will he confirm that the premium to which he referred in his speech last week,

of £18 per cwt, will be at that figure and not below it? When will certification actually begin, and when will the producer begin to receive the benefit the right hon. Gentleman announced?

Mr. Peart: I referred to this in my speech. I specifically said that certification procedures would take about three to four weeks—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"]—because it is a big administrative job. If hon. Members do not understand that they do not understand farming. In addition, I must see what the attitude of the Community is. This will not be easy. Conservative Members, however, who are great Europeans, defended the system. I must pursue this matter even though we are in a period of renegotiation. The right hon. Gentleman knows that £18 per cwt was a firm decision. I am pleased to see that prices are relatively stable.

Mr. Torney: Will my right hon. Friend say what his attitude will be if, when he goes to the Community with the support he has promised for beef, the Community refuses to support the offer he has made? Will he—as he should—take unilateral action to give the beef farmer the support he deserves?

Mr. Peart: It would be wrong of me, before going there, to indulge in hypothetics. I shall judge the situation as I see it and then make a decision.

Mr. Winterton: I am sure that the farming industry welcomes the limited measures introduced by the Minister recently, but does he not agree that further action is required, and will he declare to the House whether the slaughter premium is for liveweight or deadweight?

Mr. Peart: I am having discussions about this, regarding the procedures involved, and I cannot say more at this stage.

Honey

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take action to ensure that amateur beekeepers in the United Kingdom retain the right to sell honey with certain "impurities" in the light of a proposed EEC draft instrument R608/74 of 11 March 1974 requiring the rendering of complex


statistical information on the contents of a jar of honey; and if he has any readily available figures of the number of people who have suffered illness, bodily harm or death as a result of eating heather or other "impure" honey.

Mr. Bishop: Existing United Kingdom law does not allow the sale of honey containing unacceptable amounts of impurities. The EEC proposals now require that honey shall, as far as practicable, be free from extraneous matter. It is not proposed that detailed information about the composition of honey need be stated on the label of the jar.
With regard to the last part of the Question, no figures are available.

Mr. Dalyell: In that case, cannot we make sure that some of the draft instruments churned out in Brussels are a little less unreal?

Mr. Bishop: I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is speaking from his experience as a member of the Scrutiny Committee, in which case he will be aware of some of the matters which he has raised.
With regard to negotiations since the EEC draft to which my hon. Friend refers, amendments have been made to the proposals to take account of representations received from honey producers, consumers and other United Kingdom interests. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that, so far, 77 communications have been issued to British honey interests, including Scottish beekeepers.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that all the important reservations made by the United Kingdom have been accepted in the revised draft regulation which will come through, and that it will in no way be harmful to beekeeping and honey producing throughout the United Kingdom?

Mr. Bishop: I believe that that is substantially true. As the hon. Gentleman will know, there are no special regulations concerning British honey. I hope that as a result of our negotiations with the EEC some aspects of this matter will be influenced in the Community. I believe that there will be virtually no change in the present situation in this country, and that will help British exporters.

Agricultural Land

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has for the nationalisation of agricultural land.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Norman Buchan): None, Sir.

Mr. Hurd: Does the hon. Gentleman deny, as a consequence of his answer, Press reports that the Government are considering a terrible plan devised by Lord Kaldor in which farmers who cannot pay a wealth tax of, say, 3 per cent. on their land will be compelled to hand over three acres in every hundred to the State?

Mr. Buchan: The hon. Gentleman should put that question of Lord Kaldor, who is very approachable. Our proposals, which will be brought forward shortly, relate to land which is subject to development. [Interruption.] I am dealing with the question which is being posed in relation to land. The land proposals we have relate to bringing land into public ownership, where required for development.

Mr. Spearing: Does my hon. Friend agree that, although he may not have plans for public ownership in the national sense, some countries—some of which are not of my political colour—have many tenant farmers who rent their farms from county councils, and that this has great advantage and ought to be encouraged?

Mr. Buchan: Neither I nor the Government have any doctrinaire objections to that principle. There has been a good deal of well administered publicly owned land in agriculture.

Mr. Donald Stewart: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree, that, whatever the merits or otherwise of nationalisation, as a principle, in other industries, it has been proved in the past that in farming nothing produces better results than a farm owned by the farmer himself?

Mr. Buchan: That is probably true. The hon. Gentleman will know of some of the problems which exist in his area where land is owned not by owner-occupier working families but by large estates, and is used for any other purpose than agricultural production.

Pig Production

Mr. Freud: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the immediate prospects for the pig industry.

Mr. Fry: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the depressed market for pigs, if he is satisfied that the continuance of the subsidy of 50p per score until September is sufficient to encourage future pig production in this country.

Mr. Peart: I refer the hon. Members to what I said in the debate on 26th June.

Mr. Freud: Is the Minister aware that my constituent pig farmers were told today that the contract price of pork would be going down by 30p next week, which will virtually wipe out the 50p subsidy which is due to finish in September? Is he further aware that a cheap food policy is admirable, but not if it bankrupts those people who produce the cheap food?

Mr. Peart: I am aware of the difficulties facing pig producers. I still believe that the 50p per score subsidy was right, and, after all, it was an immediate action. I know that producers did not recoup in every case. I shall look into the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised, if he will give me the particulars, and have it carefully examined.

Mr. Fry: Is the Minister aware that most pig producers are disappointed in him over his action, or lack of action, from which it is likely that the pig population in 1975 will be reduced? Does he realise that he is in real danger of being regarded as the butcher of Workington?

Mr. Peart: That is a rather childish observation. I took immediate action regarding the pig industry when I became the Minister. Further, I have recently been to the Community and obtained an extension of the subsidy. The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that national aids of this kind in the Community are sometimes regarded by other countries as a distortion of competition. I secured something which I believed was helpful for the industry.

Sugar Beet Growers

Mr. MacGregor: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take action to increase the overall return to United Kingdom sugar beet growers in the current year in view of the inadequacy of the present price in face of rising costs.

Mr. Buchan: Prices paid to growers are a matter for negotiation between their representatives and the British Sugar Corporation.

Mr. MacGregor: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that M. Lardinois recently commented that the sugar beet price in the United Kingdom was too low, bearing in mind production costs, and needed to be boosted? In view of that, as well as the fact that many growers are likely to have losses this year, will he consider whether he can find ways to increase the return to growers this year, perhaps, among other things, by restoring the 10 per cent. cut in the transition period announced by his right hon. Friend earlier this year, not least because it will give some confidence to growers contemplating a cut-back in acreage next year?

Mr. Buchan: I, and my Department, have received from the NFU representations on prices and future prospects, and we are considering those representations.

Beef Prices

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by how much he estimates that the proposals announced in his statement of 19th June increase the end price to British beef farmers in the next three or four mouths.

Mr. Peart: An increase in the guide price which I announced on 19th June will give a greater measure of protection against imports from other member States and third countries, and so provide a firmer tone in our market. But it is not possible to predict the precise effect on fat cattle prices.

Mr. Mills: If the Minister promises to do absolutely nothing to help the beef producer now to pay his bills and deal with his overdraft and bank manager, will he give a firm assurance that once certification is under way farmers will have


their prices made up to the £18—otherwise confidence will continue to fall?

Mr. Peart: I have made a decision which has been welcomed by the farming industry and by the unions in this country and in Scotland specifically. I gave a pledge. The hon. Gentleman is a former Minister connected with the industry. He should know that the certification procedures will take a little time. I have to go to Europe, and the hon. Gentleman knows the difficulties there. I have been cross-examined before on the matter. I believe that what I have done has restored confidence.

Mr. Jay: Will my right hon. Friend confirm the report in today's Financial Times that the EEC beef mountain has now reached 130,000 tons, and that there is an Australian representative in Brussels trying to sell to the EEC surplus Australian beef which is at present excluded? Is it not grotesque that the British consumer should be deprived of both the EEC beef mountain and Australian beef which we could buy?

Mr. Peart: As my right hon. Friend said, stocks in the Community are growing. That is what permanent intervention means. That is why I got an option on intervention in this commodity and why I prefer another type of system. Conservative Members believe in permanent intervention; that was their policy, and they destroyed the guarantee system. That is why we are renegotiating.

Mr. West: I agree that the assistance given to the industry was beneficial. It is the urgency of the matter that concerns us all. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in Northern Ireland, where we have the certification machinery in being, the scheme should be put into operation as from 1st July, and that the calculations to determine the market price of fat cattle should be done on a Northern Ireland and British basis rather than on the basis of the United Kingdom as a whole? It would make a substantial difference to the beef price in Northern Ireland if it were calculated on a Northern Ireland basis.

Mr. Peart: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I have to go to Brussels. The matter will come before the Council of Ministers, and a decision will have to be taken. I hope

that the Council will agree with what I have done. If it does, that will be satisfactory. If not, I shall have to consider the situation.

Mr. Pym: When, in the right hon. Gentleman's judgment, will the announcement he made on beef last week bring the production of beef back into profitability?

Mr. Peart: I believe that already the firming of the market will restore confidence. I hope that the right hon Gentleman will agree that this is the right approach. I am certain that if we have a different type of system from that of permanent intervention, which I believe has failed—if we have the sort of system that I want and, I believe, the farmers want—it will be the beginning of longterm security for the livestock section of the farming community.

Mr. Watt: When the right hon. Gentleman goes to Brussels, will he see that he gets a minimum slaughter price for fat cows and fat bulls, as well as clean cattle?

Mr. Peart: I have mentioned clean cattle. I shall examine that matter, but I am doubtful.

Mr. Jopling: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at what level of market prices for beef in the United Kingdom he intends to introduce intervention buying.

Mr. Peart: As I stated in the House on 26th June, permanent intervention buying is the wrong approach to the present beef situation. I explained the further action the Government are taking to be ready to undertake certification procedures for any form of direct action necessary to support producer returns.

Mr. Jopling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that whilst he has denied producers in this country the benefits of intervention buying he has not prevented large quantities of second-rate meat from being brought, at subsidised prices, by the Community from the Continent to cold stores in this country? Is he aware that if that meat is released on our markets at a future date it may well continue to depress the market and thereby jeopardise supplies of beef in future years?

Mr. Peart: I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman said that we should


benefit by having intervention buying. I believe that permanent intervention has failed and that it is wrong to put good beef into cold storage, reduce its quality, and deny the British housewife meat on the market. It is a silly system, and the hon. Gentleman knows it.

Mr. Mark Hughes: Can my right hon. Friend give the House any example within the EEC of intervention buying having kept the market price for beef up over the last six months?

Mr. Peart: I cannot give an example in relation to beef.

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. Biffen: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what discussions have recently been held with representative agricultural bodies concerning the beef trade; and what conclusions were reached.

Mr. Biffen: In view of the subject matter of Question No. 21, I waive Question No. 20.

Horticulture Industry (Aid)

Mr. Michael Spicer: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has received on the level of State aids given to horticulture in other member countries of the EEC.

Mr. Bishop: We are continually receiving information from the Commission and from our posts abroad.

Mr. Spicer: Will the Minister tell us why on 30th April the Chairman of the Horticulture Committee of Worcestershire NFU received a letter from the Ministry which ended with the remarkable sentence:
This information is, however, not maintained in a form suitable for general dissemination"?
Surely it is not beyond the skills of the hon. Gentleman's Ministry to provide the information in a form that can be generally distributed. Is the reason that it does not do so that it believes that State aids in other member countries are higher than in ours?

Mr. Bishop: I believe that the chairman had expressed anxiety about the matter and wanted to pursue it in his

own way. I believe that it has been pointed out that attaches' offices are not staffed to deal with such inquiries from individuals, and that this was in any case not one of their functions. Although we are reasonably well informed about the assistance given by other member States, and we are making every endeavour to keep abreast of developments, the position is changing all the time. If we were to publish all the aids given to the industry we should cause more difficulties than we have with our printing problems here, because I understand that they would take up the space of two or three telephone directories.

Eggs (Imports)

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his policy with regard to the import of eggs from France.

Mr. Buchan: Imports of eggs for human consumption from France as from other sources must conform to the EEC egg marketing regulations. We are not satisfied that there are grounds for applying any further controls to such imports.

Mr. Hastings: Will the Minister say something about the alleged import of arsenicals in feed to France, which I understand is against the regulations, and the subsequent export of poultry from there to this country? If that is happening, may it not produce unfair competition for our own poultry farmers? If the hon. Gentleman does not know the answer, will he please look into the matter? I hope that he will say something now.

Mr. Buchan: We are discussing this kind of problem with the EEC, particularly as to whether we can secure amendments to the EEC rules in relation to additives in feed, which would solve some of these problems.

Mr. Hardy: Is it not the case that French poultry is commonly fed feed to which antibiotics are added—a practice that is not allowed by my hon. Friend's Ministry? Does not that justify the Ministry's suggesting to the French that there had better be a good deal of common sense in France as well as in this country?

Mr. Buchan: There is a point here in which common sense must be involved. My hon. Friend knows the difficulties. We have taken a decision that we shall negotiate from within the EEC. It is at that point that the pressure must be exerted. I hope also that we can secure co-operation from other countries in the meantime, which will solve some of the difficulties.

Central Veterinary Laboratory

Mr. Pattie: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is aware of the shortfall in recruitment to the Central Veterinary Laboratory at Weybridge; and what steps he proposes to take to improve this situation.

Mr. Bishop: Yes, Sir. Arrangements are in hand for competitions to fill vacancies in the veterinary research and scientific grades at the laboratory.
Pay is an important factor in recruitment; the pay of the research officers and supporting scientific staff at the laboratory is being increased with effect from 7th November 1973, following the recently announced increases for Civil Service scientists.

Mr. Pattie: Is not the Minister aware that in the answer to my Written Question on 24th May it was stated that there were eight vacancies at the laboratory, whereas the laboratory had previously told his Ministry that there were 13, plus a further four senior post vacancies, making 17 in all? Does he not agree that that represents a serious cover-up within his Ministry?

Mr. Bishop: I deny that there is any cover-up. I think that the present position is that there is a shortfall of veterinary research staff of 13. After the recent discussions on the pay and conditions of Government scientists, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Civil Service Department made a statement to the House. I think that the hon. Gentleman's anxiety may be justified to some extent, but my hon. Friend is urgently pursuing the matter.

Mr. Charles Morrison: Is the Minister aware that we are falling behind in the amount of research that we can do on poultry disease compared with other countries? Will he make available more

resources for research? Does the Minister agree that the shortage of vets at Weybridge is tied up with the fact that the State Veterinary Service as a whole is undermanned? Will he press his right hon. Friend in the same way as I pressed my right hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber), the predecessor of the present Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to do something about the matter very quickly?

Mr. Bishop: I have shared the hon. Member's anxiety, as have many other hon. Members. On top of the new pay proposals which have been announced by the Minister of State, Civil Service Department, the Civil Service Commission is planning a competition in the coming months for recruitment to the veterinary research staff. In the light of improvement in the pay and conditions of the staff, I think that we can look forward to some improvement in recruitment as a whole.

Agriculture Industry (Support)

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has for further support for British agriculture.

Mr. Peart: I dealt with this subject at some length in my statements in the House on 19th and 26th June and I have nothing further to add at present.

Mr. Marten: Will the Minister go a little further than he has gone so far this afternoon in answering Questions about support for beef? If, when he gets to Brussels and asks the Commission whether he can do what he says he wants to do with the £18, the Commission says, "No", will he give the House an assurance that he will come back and do what he thinks is right? If he wants a precedent for that, will he read last night's debate, in which his right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General accepted a document from the EEC but said that if the situation changed we in this country would do what we liked?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that I have to go to Brussels. I have to argue my case in Brussels. As I said in reply to a similar Question, I cannot indulge in hypothetics. If I do not get what I think is right for the livestock industry I shall report back to my


colleagues and we shall discuss what action to take.

Mr. Jay: As my right hon. Friend thinks that for beef guaranteed prices is a better policy than intervention buying, does not he think the same about other products as well?

Mr. Peart: Not exactly. In certain circumstances support buying of home products—for example, potatoes—can be reasonable, but for beef I believe that it is a costly process that in the end does not benefit the producer or the consumer.

Mr. Jopling: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the urgent need for further support for the pig industry? Has he forgotten that the 50p per score subsidy has less than two months to run and that producers cannot possibly plan for the autumn on this hand-to-mouth basis? Is he aware that he must give that part of the industry long-term guarantees so that future supplies can be assured?

Mr. Peart: As the hon. Gentleman knows, I obtained permission to introduce a subsidy—if I may use the word "permission"—when I first went to Brussels. I then realised that many hon. Members wished me to continue the subsidy. I went again to Europe and asked that I should be able to do so, and we did it. There is a lot of money involved—£30 million. I hope that along with the reduction in the cost of feeding stuffs the situation will improve. Some people have asked me to think in terms of a feed-cost formula, but as the hon. Gentleman knows, it was his administration which stopped it.

Mr. Skinner: Will my right hon. Friend tell me why it is that if he disagrees with the Common Market policy he has to go to Brussels? Would it not be more sensible to send the Common Market a letter indicating precisely what the problem is with the British agricultural industry—a problem created by the previous Government—telling it that we shall act unilaterally, that we are prepared to read all the comments that it might make but that those comments will not make any difference to our attitude?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend knows that we are bound by treaty—

Mr. Skinner: No.

Mr. Peart: It is all very well my hon. Friend's saying, "No". Perhaps he will listen. My hon. Friend was, like myself, a partner to an election manifesto, which I think was a good one. We said that we would renegotiate. It is my task, as a responsible Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to renegotiate the terms of the common agricultural policy. I shall consider at the end of the day whether the results are effective. It will then be for my Government and for the British people to judge.

Cheese

Mr. Rost: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he proposes to introduce a rationing scheme for English cheese.

Mr. Buchan: No, Sir.

Mr. Rost: What will the Minister do about the declining production of English cheese, and particularly the quality farmhouse cheeses, such as Derby, Leicestershire and Stilton? Is he aware that we are rapidly getting to a situation in which it is necessary to go to a supermarket to buy foreign cheese—which is subsidised and which is flooding into the country—and to a delicatessen store to buy good quality English cheeses?

Mr. Buchan: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's advertising of his own home products. There is really no problem other than that of advertising.

Mr. Body: Is there any sense in continuing the high levy of £200 a ton upon cheese from New Zealand and Canada?

Mr. Buchan: I am the last person who should be blamed for that levy. That remark should be directed at the hon. Gentleman's Front Bench colleagues and their supporters. Such a levy does affect our prices. That is one reason for my right hon. Friend's saying throughout Question Time, that he is hell-bent on renegotiaiting into sense some of the worst excesses of the common agricultural policy.

Oral Answers to Questions — SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (SPEECH)

Q.1 Mr. Churchill: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of State for Education and


Science to the Christian Socialist Movement on 13th June concerning policies in the light of the defiance of law by Clay Cross councillors and the AUEW represents Government policy.

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the Christian Socialist Movement on 13th June concerning policies in the light of the defiance of law by Clay Cross councillors and the AUEW represents Government policy.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Churchill: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend's strong and unequivocal condemnation of the actions of the Clay Cross councillors and the AUEW in defiance of the law as laid down by Parliament was warmly welcomed by all those who believe in a parliamentary democracy? Will he accept that his answer today will be similarly received? Further, will he extend this condemnation to the action of the mindless minority of militants within the National Health Service who seek to take the law into their own hands? Will he tell them, on his authority, that this place, the sovereign Parliament, is where decisions are to be taken?

The Prime Minister: On the occasion on which my right hon. Friend spoke there was no record of what he said. I have, however, studied the Press cttings. It was a gathering of distinguished Christians. My right hon. Friend made no ex-Cathedra pronouncements but offered a few animadversions. Nothing that he said was in any way inconsistent with what I said on the Clay Cross issue when I spoke in the House a little while ago. The question of the National Health Service and pay beds was dealt with yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. The position is, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will realise, that we on the Government side of the House have strong views on what our policy should be. We regard this as a matter of Government policy which should be put forward to Parliament and accepted by Parliament. I regret any attempt outside the parliamentary process to carry through a policy, however desirable

Mr. Tebbit: Will the right hon. Gentleman say—as he now accepts as Government policy the view that the Clay Cross councillors were wrong—that there will be no legislation to remove the disqualifications which were rightly placed upon those councillors? If he cannot say that, we shall assume that he is wriggling again.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman can assume what he likes. In answer to both parts of his question, I have nothing to add to the full statement that I made in the House.

Mr. Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the history of the Labour movement has been written in part by the actions of those who, over the years, have carried forward the policies of the Labour Party—such as the Clay Cross councillors—and those who have acted honourably in the Charing Cross and other hospitals? Should not my right hon. Friend be commending the actions of those who are preparing to get rid of "the lump" and of agency nursing? Is not that Labour Party policy which was carried by more than a two-thirds' majority?

The Prime Minister: I seem to recall that my hon. Friend put the first part of his supplementary question to me in precisely the same terms when I made a statement on Clay Cross, and I refer him to the answer that I gave on that occasion. The Government have decided on firm action against "the lump", and action in certain directions has already been taken. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, a few days ago, made an important speech on this subject, but, unfortunately, the Press did not think it worth while to report it. I have just stated the Government's position on the action that has been taken at Charing Cross Hospital.

Mr. Heath: Is the Prime Minister aware that he has hardly done full justice to what his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science said on this occasion? The Secretary of State is reported in The Guardian—a paper which the Prime Minister often quotes—as saying:
I believe it was wrong for the Clay Cross councillors to take the action they did. I believe it was wrong for the AUEW to defy the National Industrial Relations Court.


Will the Prime Minister say that he fully agrees that in those two cases it was wrong for this action to be taken? Will he go further and, rather than regret what is happening in the hospitals, say that it is wrong that it should happen, that he condemns it, and that he will immediately urge the union to stop dealing in this way with sick private patients?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman clearly did not hear my earlier answer. I said that I regret it. I regret it because it is wrong, obviously. I said that it was wrong to do this and that it should be done by the parliamentary process. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, who is perpetuating an injustice in this respect, will be with us in the Division Lobby when we introduce our proposals for the National Health Service.
As I have made clear repeatedly, and as my right hon. Friend has made clear repeatedly, the Clay Cross councillors took their action believing it to be right. Both my right hon. Friend and I have said this on several occasions. I have nothing to add to what I said previously.

Mr. Heath: Will the Prime Minister urge the union to stop at once its action against private patients in hospital?

The Prime Minister: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] In saying that I regret it, and that I believe it to be wrong, obviously I believe that it should stop, and I believe that the House wants it to stop. Of course that is so. The right hon. Gentleman will know that the situation which has arisen in the nursing profession is the result of his rigidities and lack of understanding. We are in a situation which has been caused by him. I think that it is wrong to react to the right hon. Gentleman's lack of compassion by these methods.

Mr. Heath: The situation that exists in the nursing profession has been caused because the right hon. Gentleman and his Government were not prepared to allow the nurses' position to be considered by the Relativities Board. That is why it has arisen. In any case, this action discriminates against one section of the sick—the private patients—and I

welcome the Prime Minister's statement that this must stop.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is making clear week by week that he wants to fight an election on the retention of the Pay Board and going back to a three-day working week. The country will not forget that, nor will it forget that the three-day working week was due to the bureaucracy of the right hon. Gentleman and the Pay Board. The right hon. Gentleman put the country on a three-day working week because of the rigidity of the Relativities Board. The right hon. Gentleman will know of other difficulties which were caused by the long delays and the bureaucracy of his creation. He will also know—let him deny this if he wishes—that if the nurses had been put in the same position with this bureaucratic Pay Board procedure, what is happening in the Charing Cross Hospital—which I deplore—would have happened a couple of months ago.

Mr. Speaker: Question No. Q2.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: One a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Lady raise her point of order at the end of Question Time?

Later—

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the Prime Minister discusses the question of private patients, will he compel his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to declare her interest as a recent private patient—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a point of order and I should like to hear it.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: When discussing the question of private patients, will the Prime Minister compel his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to declare her interest as a recent private patient and declare his own similar interest and that of many of his colleagues who have been private patients, thus dispelling the hypocrisy which surrounds the Government Front Bench in this regard?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that that is a matter for the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Prime Minister whether he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department of Trade regarding the policy of Her Majesty's Government for bringing to an end the illegal régime in Rhodesia; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. There is regular and close co-ordination between the numerous Departments concerned with the enforcement of sanctions against Rhodesia.

Mr. Evans: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. The Question was tabled before the Secretary of State saw the African ambassadors and high commissioners on Monday of this week. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there have been on clandestine talks with the Smith régime and that the Government are determined to increase their efforts to support United Nations sanctions against Rhodesia? Will my right hon. Friend consider withdrawing the Home-Smith settlement, which is laid on the table and which has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the African people. as was shown by the Pearce Report? Will my right hon. Friend give consideration to the proposal made by the African National Council this week, that the leaders of the African people who are now interned should be consulted?

The Prime Minister: I confirm what my right hon. Friend said. There have been no talks with the Smith regime in Rhodesia. Our position remains that we are vigilant in dealing with any sanction-breaking by any United Kingdom citizens. There have been very few instances of that over the years. We are also vigilant in making known through appropriate machinery evidence we have about breaches by other countries.
My hon. Friend will be aware that recently a lot of information came to light about sanction breaking. That is being taken up with the proper authorities and with the countries concerned, and I understand that action is being taken. My hon. Friend will also know that this week my right hon. Friend and I met representatives of the African National Council who came here on behalf of Bishop

Muzorewa and repeated to them the assurances for which my hon. Friend asked. My right hon. Friend and I told those representatives that the previous Government's proposals do not now lie on the table. They were rejected by the African people. There will be no consideration of any deal with the Rhodesian régime until proposals come forward which are accepted, in acordance with the former fifth principle, and until we know that they are approved by the majority of the people of Rhodesia, including the African population. I hope that is clear.

Mr. Hastings: Would it not be better if the Prime Minister gave some encouragement to Mr. Smith in his negotiations with the ANC? As the right hon. Gentleman's policies on Rhodesia have not been markedly sucessful in recent years, would it not be better if he concentrated on maintaining law and order here in the United Kingdom and in Northern Ireland, rather than on keeping up the pretence that he and his Government are in a position to do anything whatever about Rhodesia?

The Prime Minister: It is not my impression that Mr. Smith is in need of any encouragement while the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) and many others on the Opposition benches are around to give him the encouragement he seeks, including some votes by the then Leader of the Opposition, supporting the action which Mr. Smith took, at a very critical time. I have made clear that we shall need to have the assurance of the support of the African people before any agreement can be reached.
The hon. Gentleman referred to law and order in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, but it was he and others in this House who first set the principle of a breakdown of law and order by supporting, erroneously, the illegal Smith r régime.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT POLICY (MINISTER'S SPEECH)

Mr. George Gardiner: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech by the Secretary of State for Industry on 19th June to the AUEW at Great Yarmouth on the Government's intentions towards industry represents Government policy.

Mr. Hurd: asked the Prime Minister whether the public speech made by the Secretary of State for Industry at Great Yarmouth on 19th June on the Government's intentions towards industry represents Government policy.

Mr. Jasper: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of State for Industry at Great Yarmouth on 19th June concerning the Government's industrial intentions represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Gardiner: Since a number of the Prime Minister's colleagues are making earnest efforts at the moment to re-establish some confidence in industry, will the Prime Minister agree that his coming White Paper should clearly state the industries and firms which are earmarked for nationalisation and for the so-called "planning agreements"? Will the White Paper also clear up the position of the banks, insurance companies and building societies?

The Prime Minister: The White Paper will set out clearly the policy of Her Majesty's Government as laid down in our manifesto which we presented to the people at the General Election.

Mr. Ashley: Is it reasonable to assume that the Opposition campaign against nationalisation and in favour of free enterprise implies directly that free enterprise firms should be free from any kind of Governmental financial assistance? If the Opposition take that view, should they not say so?

The Prime Minister: Certain campaigns in part at least, are in favour not of free enterprise but of free "un-enterprise" and monopolies.

Mr. Hurd: Will the Prime Minister say what his choice will be if, in the autumn, he has to decide between sticking to the highly divisive policies announced by the Secretary of State and taking part in a national Government designed to deal with an increasingly serious economic situation?

The Prime Minister: I think that the only time that this country has been in real danger, through divisive confrontation policies, was in the period up to 28th February this year, when the country

rejected those policies, petulantly and deliberately introduced by the then Prime Minister.

Mr. Jeffrey Archer: We got more votes than you did.

The Prime Minister: The Conservatives did not say that in 1951. I thought the hon. Member was on a point which he and others regarded seriously. If the problems of this country are to be solved—and we are facing deep problems, partly from outside and partly inherited from the policies of the Conservative Government—it will not happen by going to the lowest common denominator between the parties. National unity will not he brought about by the sort of contribution we have seen from the Conservative Party in terms of any proposed Government of bogus unity.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: Will the Leader of the House please announce the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the (Mr. Edward Short): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 8TH JULY—Consideration of Private Members' motions until 7 p.m. Afterwards, Second Reading of the Rent Bill [Lords] and of the Merchant Shipping Bill [Lords].
TUESDAY 9TH JULY AND WEDNESDAY 10TH JULY—Remaining stages of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill.
THURSDAY 11TH JULY—Progress on the Report stage of the Finance Bill.
FRIDAY 12TH JULY—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY 15TH JULY—Supply [13th Allotted Day]: Subject for debate to be announced.

Mr. Heath: May I first ask the right hon. Gentleman about the situation in regard to parliamentary papers and the extent to which we can carry the business which he has announced for next week without them?
The situation has become extremely critical. The right hon. Gentleman has


given assurances that he will do his utmost to ensure that papers are available. Is he aware that on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill there is nothing available, either printed or typed, for Sittings 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 and 18 of the Standing Committee and no amended Bill is available? It is difficult to understand how the House can possibly carry on its discussions on this basis. The situation on the Finance Bill is also extremely difficult because, as I hope the Leader of the House appreciates, it involves not only this House being able to examine amendments but those outside the House who are customarily concerned in expressing a view on any Finance Bill but now have almost nothing available to them.
I understand that to date in the Finance Bill Committee there have been nine Government defeats on matters which the Government may wish to debate again 13 Opposition amendments were accepted without Division, and in 42 cases in all the Government undertook to review the situation and come forward with amendments. It is impossible for the House to consider such amendments properly—and this applies to those outside who, clearly, will be affected by them and who wish to express their views—if no publication of any kind is available on these matters. I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that these papers are available before the weekend, or else we shall have to ask for business to be postponed.

Mr. Short: I am very sorry indeed about this difficulty, but the position is as follows. On the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, I understand that all the Committee HANSARD'S except one are now available and the remaining one will be available tomorrow. [An HON. MEMBER: "No. Go to the Vote Office and ask."] If this is incorrect I apologise, but I inquired about the situation and this is the information I was given. If that is not the case, I shall ensure that the rest are available tomorrow. Most of the amendments will be tabled today but some of the more substantial ones will be tabled tomorrow. The Bill will be available tomorrow. If any hon. Member would like the Bill or amendments sent to his home by special delivery, he should give his name to my office. [Interruption.] These are emergency

arrangements and I am trying to help. If the Opposition Chief Whips will cooperate and let me have the names this evening, I shall ensure that every Member who wants copies receives them either tomorrow or on Saturday morning at the latest.
As for the Finance Bill, the whole of the Committee stage proceedings should be available today or tomorrow. I hope that they will all be available today. I am afraid that the proof copy of the Bill will not be available until Monday, but the refined copy will be available on Tuesday. The Lords version of the Rent Bill will be available tomorrow, as will the revised version. If right hon. or hon. Gentlemen have any specific problems, they should let me know and I shall do my best to make emergency arrangements to help them.

Mr. Heath: I am grateful for that statement by the right hon. Gentleman. The information which I have given the House is the latest we had given to us just before 3.30 p.m. today. Obviously we shall further explore the situation.
There is one further point I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman. When he said that these documents will become available, particularly Finance Bill papers, did he mean that they will be available to the public outside the House as well as to hon. Members and does this also apply to Government amendments? He will clearly recognise that it is important that those outside the House should have the information available on which they can express their views.
I should like to mention two other points. It is reported today that at yesterday's Neddy meeting the Secretary of State for Employment gave a firm undertaking to employers and unions that the Government would not introduce a wage freeze before the General Election, whenever that may be, and, indeed, said that no wage freeze would be introduced after the election. In view of the importance of this issue, will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Secretary of State for Employment to come to the House and make a full statement on this topic?
In view of the situation in National Health Service hospitals, will the right hon. Gentleman seek to provide at least half a day for a debate on this matter—and provide it urgently?

Mr. Short: Dealing with the right hon. Gentleman's first point, I shall look into it to see whether there is any way in which I can help. We are trying to make copies available to people outside who have a special interest. We will do our best.
With regard to the NEDC, my right hon. Friend will be making a statement, not on this specific matter but on his policy generally, before the Summer Recess.
I shall pass on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services what the right hon. Gentleman said about hospitals.

Mr. William Hamilton: Does my right hon. Friend recall that in answer to a Question of mine on 18th June about the problems of battered wives and children the Prime Minister indicated that the Secretary of State for Social Services would be making a statement on the matter soon? I have heard a rumour that a Select Committee is to be set up to look into these matters. When will that statement be made, and when will the Select Committee be set up?

Mr. Short: I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that I have considered the suggestion put to me by him and by my right hon. Friend. I am happy to agree to a Select Committee being set up. However, there is not much point in setting it up before the Summer Recess, but certainly it will be done in the autumn.

Mr. Tebbit: Is the Leader of the House aware that since he made his statement I have been to the Vote Office? Those in the Vote Office tell me that copies of the Committee proceedings on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill are not available and, what is more, that they have only the reports of Sittings Nos. 1 to 9? I am afraid that once again the right hon. Gentleman is causing hon. Members to go away with something other than the true state of affairs in their minds.

Mr. Short: If that is so, I apologise. But I also have checked since saying what said a moment ago. The advice which I have is that what I said was absolutely correct. I said that all the Committee HANSARDS except one are available and that that one will be available tomorrow.

I can only wait until I leave the Chamber and check further for myself in order to find out the exact position.

Mr. McNamara: My right hon. Friend will be aware that there are many excellent Ten-Minute Bills which have not yet received a Second Reading. I have in mind especially my own Bill on hare coursing, and my right hon. Friend will know that Bills on this subject have been widely supported for the past 10 years. What are the chances of that Bill getting a Second Reading either in Government time or after ten o'clock at night?

Mr. Short: There are still two more days remaining for Private Members' business. If my hon. Friend is unsuccessful on those days, I shall be happy to provide a small amount of time to debate this very important measure.

Mr. Prior: I wish to return to the subject of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill. It is quite clear now from my hon. Friends who have checked with the Vote Office in the last minute or two that these HANSARDS are not available. We know the difficulties. We experienced them when we were in Government. But the position gets worse each month, and the time has come when it is quite intolerable for hon. Members to try to conduct their business without the proper papers. I do not see how we can go on in this way. I believe that it is now becoming a matter of the privilege of the House. We cannot go on being expected to conduct business in this House without the proper papers with which to do so. A few years ago this would not have been tolerated by this House. Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have exercised enormous patience about this situation over the past few years, but I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the time has come when some very firm action should be taken. [HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] There are plenty of things which could be done. If Government supporters wish to know, one way would be to postpone the taking of this business until the papers are available.

Mr. Short: It is clear that the Conservative Party wants to prove its alleged virility by being as difficult and as obstructive as it can, and then the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will be making speeches about national


unity over the coming weekend. They come here and are as obstructive as it is possible to be. The right hon. Gentleman was himself Leader of the House, He knows quite well that over and over again when he was Leader of the House exactly the same thing happened. I very much regret what has happened, and I am doing all that I can to help. If I have made a mistake or if I have been wrongly informed about the HANSARDS, I shall apologise to the House. I am very sorry about the situation, but we are doing our best.

Sir G. de Freitas: On the subject of Select Committees, does the Leader of the House remember that when the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation was set up it was done on the assumption that adequate staff would be provided for the Committee and that Government Departments would provide it with information? When will that staff be provided?

Mr. Short: I understand that the additional Speaker's Counsel has been provided already—

Sir G. de Freitas: That is not what I asked.

Mr. Short: If it is not what my right hon. Friend asked, I do not know what he is talking about. We have certainly provided that staff, and Government Departments are giving all the help that they can.

Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the Leader of the House say whether this House will have an opportunity of discussing the White Paper just published on Northern Ireland before the Summer Recess?

Mr. Short: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will be making a statement immediately after business questions, and there will be ample opportunity to debate it later on before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Ford: When will my right hon. Friend be in a position to lay before the House proposals arising from the Boyle Report on Members' allowances? Is he aware that hon. Members are losing secretaries because they cannot afford to pay the going rate, and that some hon. Members are dossing down in the House

owing to difficulties arising from exorbitant charges for London accommodation?

Mr. Short: I shall be making a statement very shortly, and certainly before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Tugendhat: Reverting to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, naturally we accept the right hon. Gentleman's apology, but does he not accept that the snag that he has just run into shows how difficult it is to guarantee that these papers will be available? Can he tell us what arrangements he will make to ensure that all the various assurances that the Government have given to the Committee will be transmitted to the outside bodies which are connected with the Bill and have been following its progress—not only the TUC, which always knows about these matters before we do, but the various other organisations which have a legitimate interest?

Mr. Short: I understand that this has been discussed through the usual channels. We are doing all that we can to help in this matter.

Mr. John Ellis: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, with regard to the repeal of the Industrial Relations Act, the Opposition are in really great difficulty? Does he appreciate this? Some of the amendments they have withdrawn—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not the time for speech-making. What is the question?

Hon. Members: He has not got one.

Mr. Rippon: What arrangements will the Leader of the House make to resume last night's adjourned debate on the European Economic Commission's documents on regional policy so that the Secretary of State for Industry has the opportunity of explaining the Government's policy? Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a Government statement to be made on the constitutional implications of the declaration of the Secretary of State that explanatory memoranda issued by a previous administration have no validity? This affects hundreds of circulars and explanatory memoranda. If the Secretary of State is right, will the Government arrange for all of them to be reprinted and redated?

Mr. Short: The answer to the first part of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question is "None". The answer to the second part is that I will look into it.

Mr. George: Will my right hon. Friend consider allowing time before the end of the Session for this House to consider a very important report published last week; namely, the Finer Report on single-parent families?

Mr. Short: This is an extremely important and very long report which has taken a considerable time to produce. There will have to be extensive consultations on it. But I hope that an opportunity will be found to debate it in this House.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Will there be time next week for even a short statement on the non-implementation of the promise in the Gracious Speech of help and assistance for minority parties? The right hon. Gentleman will remember that he welcomed this proposal and thanked the minority parties for making it. As my own minority party works in a situation where, when we reported to the people of Scotland—[Interruption.] Apparently, one hon. Member thinks that this is very boring. I can assure him that the people of Scotland do not. They think it is disgraceful. Do we have to wait for a General Election for a statement, or are we likely to have one next week?

Mr. Short: Not next week, but certainly before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Skinner: Reverting to the arguments that have been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that last night we spent five hours discussing guidelines from the Common Market, that the papers were not available in the Vote Office, and that in chorus the whole of the Tory Opposition suggested that we should get on with the debate without the papers? Is not this another instance of their hypocrisy? [Interruption.] Will my right hon. Friend also arrange for a debate on the report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries dealing with the National Coal Board's roof sup-

port purchasing and ensure that, when the debate has taken place, a public inquiry is held so that Lord Robens and others associated with these allegations can be brought before it?

Mr. Short: Opportunities are available to the House to discuss these reports. That is the kind of report that could be discussed in one of those debates.

Mr. Costain: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Standing Committee on the Channel Tunnel Bill is due to meet next week, that it is impossible to get the Select Committee reports, and that it is difficult for hon. Members on behalf of their constituents to make contributions until they are available? Will he do something about making them available?

Mr. Short: I will certainly look into the matter.

Mr. Cryer: Will my right hon. Friend give time to debate the security aspects of the House and, in particular, the lack of an automatic fire warning system? Does he accept that if we fail to ensure adequate standards in this place, which is a high fire hazard, we cannot expect offices, shops, factories and hotels to set high standards?

Mr. Short: My hon. Friend will notice that I have put down a motion on the recommendation of the Services Committee, and we shall debate it shortly. I understand that a fire warning system is being installed and that it will be in operation later this year.

Mr. Goodhart: Reverting to the difficulties about the availability of parliamentary papers next week, would it not be better on Tuesday to have a debate on the critical situation in the National Health Service because in the Bethlem and Maudsley group of hospitals the refusal by the staff to work with agency nurses has led to the closing of a number of neurosurgical beds?

Mr. Short: No. I think that we must adhere to the business that I have announced. I am sure that the papers will be available.

Mr. Prior: When will the papers be available? May we have an absolute assurance that all these papers will be available by tomorrow or Monday at the


latest—(HON. MEMBERS: "Too late."]—that really is too late—and that if they are not available in a proper form for the House the debates on Tuesday and Wednesday will be postponed?

Mr. Short: I explained the position about the papers in reply to the Leader of the Opposition. I stick by what I said. The papers will be available. This kind of situation occurred over and over again when the right hon. Gentleman was Leader of the House.

Mr. Prior: That is not true. At least the typed papers were available for debates in this House. We have not even sot available the typed HANSARD of the Committee stage on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill. It is no good the right hon. Gentleman saying that the papers are or will be available and then, when they are not available, apologising to the House because he has been wrongly informed. We must have these papers before the debates take place. If he cannot ensure that the papers will be available before the debates take place, the only thing to do is to postpone the debates.

Mr. Short: What I said was not quite true. The situation was much worse when the right hon. Gentleman was Leader of the House.

Mr. Tom King: May I ask the Leader of the House, if there is a copy available shortly, to look at last night's proceedings on European papers on the Regional Development Fund? He will see that there was criticism by his hon. Friends as well as by hon. Members on this side of the House of the extraordinary behaviour and attitude of the Secretary of State for Industry. We must have a different system for future debates on these questions.

Mr. Short: That was the first series of debates under the new procedure. We will review what happened last night to see whether we can improve upon it. I agree that there are a number of points to be considered.

NORTHERN IRELAND

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Merlyn Rees): I will, with permission, make a statement.
I have today published a White Paper on Northern Ireland and have given notice of presentation of a Northern Ireland Bill which will give effect to the proposals in the paper.
The arrangements in the Constitution Act 1973, which have now been brought into force for the temporary government of Northern Ireland, were designed only for short periods which might arise between Executives. My discussions since the fall of the Executive have shown that no Executive can be formed out of the present Assembly.
I have appointed temporarily Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office to administer Northern Ireland Departments. They are constitutionally responsible not to Parliament but to the prorogued Assembly. Under the present arrangements any Northern Ireland legislation would have to be obtained by Bill at Westminster. No Parliamentary timetable here could bear this load.
The new Northern Ireland Bill will therefore make the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland responsible to this Parliament for the devolved services and will provide that laws for Northern Ireland may be made by Order in Council on matters within the legislative competence of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
These arrangements will supersede for the time being those provisions of the Constitution Act 1973 which deal with the functions of the Assembly and the Executive, but all other of its provisions will remain in full force and effect. The arrangements for the government of Northern Ireland in the new Bill will have a life of one year, but can be extended or terminated subject to the approval of Parliament. The arrangements are designed to be temporary and could not be the permanent form of government for Northern Ireland.
Turning to the future, the extensive discussions I have had with political leaders and with the representatives of many groups and interests, following the fall of the Executive brought about by the Ulster Workers Council political


stoppage, have shown that many people in Northern Ireland would welcome the chance of trying themselves to find a way of solving their own political and economic problems. The Government believe, therefore, that the time has come to give representatives of all the people of Northern Ireland the opportunity to meet together to discuss their future.
As the first stage in this process the Bill will provide for a Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention to be elected to consider what provisions for the government of Northern Ireland would be likely to command the most widespread acceptance throughout the community there. The existing Northern Ireland Assembly will be dissolved as from the date of calling this election. The Government will play no part in the proceedings of the Convention, but will be willing to assist it in any way which is likely to bring its deliberations to a successful conclusion.
The Convention will have an independent chairman of high standing and impartiality from Northern Ireland and 78 members elected for the existing 12 parliamentary constituencies in Northern Ireland by the single transferable vote system. The Convention's report will be laid before Parliament. The Bill also provides that questions arising from the work of the Convention may be tested by referendum in Northern Ireland.
It is not proposed to hold an immediate or early election to the Convention, but about four weeks' notice of an election will be given.
No local institutions can be established in Northern Ireland if they are unacceptable to broad sections of opinion there. Equally, I must emphasise that they cannot be established on a basis unacceptable to the people of the United Kingdom as a whole and to Parliament. This is why the report of the Convention will be laid before Parliament and it is why in the White Paper I have seen fit to spell out some of the realities of the situation which the Convention must face. I will supplement this with a fuller explanation on the financial side at a later date.
There is an overriding need that both communities in Northern Ireland must participate in government by a sharing

of power. There is the fact that Northern Ireland has a special relationship with the Republic of Ireland—what the previous Government's White Paper described as the Irish dimension. There is the reality of the financial link between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The fall of the Executive was a turning point in the recent history of Northern Ireland and this explains the concept and tone of the White Paper. The Government think it essential at this time also to emphasise again the overriding importance of the particular question of law and order.
The Army went into Northern Ireland on a temporary basis nearly five years ago in a situation where there was widespread sectarian confrontation. It is now dealing with urban guerrilla warfare, but it has also become involved in policing in many areas.
Her Majesty's Government will continue to discharge their responsibilities, but our hope is that normal policing, effectively backed by the support of the whole community in Northern Ireland, will take over a steadily increasing share of this heavy burden. A determination by the whole community to support the police service and to co-operate with it would transform the security situation. If this process developed, the Army would be enabled to make a planned, orderly and progressive reduction in its present commitment, leading ultimately to the point when the Army would no longer need to be involved in a policing rôle.
It is in this context that I have laid before the House today an order which provides for the extension of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 for six months. This will provide time during which Lord Gardiner's Committee, which has already begun work, can advise on the future of the Act. In the light of recommendations of the Committee, proposals will in due course be brought before Parliament.
I must, however, make it clear that the need remains for some kind of emergency powers in Northern Ireland until violence stops. It is a society in which over 1,000 people have been killed in the past five years. It is not a normal United Kingdom situation. The lives of soldiers, of policemen and of the civilian popula


tion must be given greater protection in Northern Ireland than the ordinary law allows.
The Government believe that their proposals for the Convention offer an opportunity for the people of Northern Ireland to contribute directly and in their own way to the establishing of a joint and stable society in Northern Ireland.
An election will take place at which a wide range of parties representing all shades of opinion can put their views on the constitutional future of Northern Ireland to the electorate. All those who genuinely have political views can face the electorate, and the Government hope that the process of discussion and consultation will develop on as wide a basis as possible and cover the whole range of Northern Ireland's problems.
The reward of success will be victory for all the people of Northern Ireland; the penalty of failure will be defeat for all.

Mr. Ian Gilmour: The right hon. Gentleman has made a very important statement and the House will wish to consider both it and the White Paper with great care. I hope the whole House will agree that the continuation of the emergency provisions is absolutely necessary. We certainly owe it as a duty to our soldiers, to the police, to the Ulster Defence Regiment and to civilians to afford them the greatest possible protection we can.
Will the right hon. Gentleman say something about the arrangements in this House for dealing with Northern Ireland affairs for the rest of this Session? Will he confirm that the apparent alternative of a second prorogation of the Assembly is not feasible? Can he say something about the proposed referendum? While at first sight it seems that a majority can be discerned in a referendum, it is less easy to see how majority and widespread support can be discerned in the sense that right hon. Gentleman means in his White Paper. Finally, can the right hon. Gentleman expand a little on what he says about the timing of an election? Are we to take it that, all things considered, it is unlikely that there will be an election before Chirstmas?

Mr. Rees: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's first point about the lives of soldiers, policemen and civilians,

nobody who has the responsibilities that I have in Northern Ireland can be unaware of them, and I am not prepared—and I know of nobody else in the House who is prepared—to put these people at risk in a situation of urban guerilla warfare which is sometimes very difficult to understand. The right hon. Gentleman asked about arrangements in this House once the legislation is passed, if the House sees fit to pass it. It will be by order. It will be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. If there were major subjects these could be given more time.
On a second prorogation I am quite clear that, under my responsibilities, as laid down in Section 27—[Dissolution and Prorogation]—of the Constitution Act, by virtue of which the Secretary of State acts in the nature of a Governor, I could not form an Executive now, and I could see no circumstances in which an Executive could be formed in the present Assembly. With regard to a referendum, as the hon. Gentleman will see, I thought it desirable to put "may" in the Bill in case it is thought that a referendum in Northern Ireland would assist the Convention in its consideration.
On the timing of an election, four weeks' notice fits in approximately with the convention on this side of the water, but certainly I would not foresee an election in the near future. I feel that time must be given for people to think about the facts of the White Paper and other matters. There is a good deal of discussion going on, and it would be wrong to give any idea of a date of an election because in Northern Ireland giving a date can result in violence, and it is often wrong to signal too far ahead with dates. But an election for a Convention will be held if the House sees fit to pass the legislation.

Mr. West: We should all understand that this is not the time for instant comment from those who represent the Northern Ireland community but we shall be asking the right hon. Gentleman for an early date for a discussion and debate on this matter. I would ask the Secretary of State to have a discussion with his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, because I understand from what was said a moment ago that there is some question about the arrangement of business for next


week because certain parliamentary papers are not ready. Perhaps the Northern Ireland debate could be substituted in next week's business.
In considering this debate on Northern Ireland affairs, it seems tragic that those most directly affected by this legislation are not properly represented in this House. One Member of Parliament in this House represents on average 87,000 constituents in the United Kingdom, whereas one parliamentary representative from Northern Ireland represents on average 128,000 constituents. Therefore, the Northern Ireland community is grossly under-represented. Could the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State tell us whether Ministers now forming the Executive in Northern Ireland will be answerable in this House for business in Northern Ireland during their tenure of office?
Could I also ask whether the right hon. Gentleman does not think it unwise to delay elections in Northern Ireland unduly? Has he any thought of holding elections in the month of February, considering how unwise that could be, leading to unstable conditions in Northern Ireland? I assure the House that, if given the opportunity to deal with our own affairs in Northern Ireland under the terms of this constitutional conference, we shall d our best—and I believe I can speak for all the community—to try to establish a stable and just society in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Rees: I have made it clear that shall be publishing a Bill, and of course a debate will take place on that. It will subsume the White Paper information. At the moment the Ministers who have been appointed to the various ministerial posts available in the Executive are responsible to the prorogued Assembly but they do make statements here. If this Bill is passed, all of us will be responsible to this House. As to the date of an election, I am fully aware of the problems of electioneering in February, though sometimes a date in February proves to be beneficial to some people.

Mr. Rose: While deferring any comment on the constitutional proposals in the White Paper, may I particularly welcome paragraphs 44 to 49, not least that which states that it would be wholly

unacceptable to go back to any type of Stormont Government, excluding a large part of the community in Northern Ireland? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that that is the case? Above all will he recognise that an entirely new situation has arisen in Northern Ireland in which the old Unionist politicians, like those on the other side of the House, have been discarded by the grass roots organisations in Ulster? Above all, will he try to bring together the genuine grass roots organisations, like the Ulster Workers' Council and othes, along with the genuine representatives of the minority because it is they alone who can decide the future of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Rees: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for referring to paragraphs 44 to 49. The purpose of these is to list what the Government regard as the realities of the situation. There must be participation by the community as a whole. There must be power-sharing. There is also the point that:
any pattern of government must be acceptable to the people of the United Kingdom as a whole and to Parliament at Westminster. Citizenship confers not only rights and privileges but obligations".
There is the further point of an Irish dimension. What we have sought to put down are the parameters of the situation which those who are elected should consider when submitting a scheme to this House. My hon. Friend is right to say that there is great political ferment taking place in Northern Ireland. I have received representations from what used to be called the Unionist side, putting to me the case for delaying elections and expressing views about politicians. We shall have to see what happens when the election comes.

Mr. Beith: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept a general welcome from the Liberal Bench both for what he has said this afternoon and for what is in the White Paper, in particular for the constitutional Convention proposal which is very much in line with what we asked of him in an earlier debate? Will he further recognise that if these laws for Northern Ireland are to be made by Orders in Council there will be the feeling in this House that opportunities must be provided for debate? Does he recognise that the phrase he used in his statement about "urban guerrillas" may be


an accurate description, but is far too generous a phrase to describe the kind of bestial terrorism with which he is dealing? Will he note that the passages in the White Paper on finance could have spelled out even more clearly the importance of the British contribution to the very industries upon which those who supported the strike of the Ulster Workers Council depend? Will he make it clear in his further discussions that this financial contribution is made by people who expect the people of Northern Ireland to act in the terms of the opportunities now given them and to sort out their own problems?

Mr. Rees: I am grateful for the general welcome given by the hon. Gentleman. The Orders in Council will be debated. I am sure that we can at some time or other, through the usual channels, provide extra time for debate on major issues. We are talking about the period following the end of this Session. Whether the description "urban guerrillas" is right or wrong, the plain fact is that, and I see this every day, this is a society in which large numbers of people are killed or maimed. There is a bestiality which seems to permeate to the younger members of the community.
The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the finance. We shall be publishing further information on finance later in the year and on other matters such as the jobs provided by defence establishments which are not there because of the troubles. All of this has to be taken into consideration when people are considering their future.

Mr. Fitt: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it is the firm intention of the British Government to base any future constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland upon a system of power-sharing, partnership and the Irish dimension? Will he confirm that the Government will not allow themselves to be driven by certain elements in Northern Ireland into the position of doing away with the basis of power-sharing and the Irish dimension? Turning to the announcement about the extension of the Emergency Provisions Act, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the Act not only takes into account the lives of the soldiers and other security forces there,

but also ensures that a number of men continue to be detained in Northern Ireland? Is there to be a debate limited to an hour and a half to discuss the burning issue of internment which has caused such great disruption in Northern Ireland? Will he consider allowing more than an hour and a half so that we may all have our say on this important subject?

Mr. Rees: We have made our views clear in the White Paper about the realities of the situation, dealing with such things as power-sharing, the Irish dimension and belonging to the United Kingdom. We are all extremely proud of our citizenship of the United Kingdom, which imposes responsibilities on us.
The amount of time allowed for debating the emergency provisions legislation is not a matter for me. I am fully aware of the situation.
I believe that the Emergency Provisions Act can be reformed—hence the Gardiner Committee. Given the situation in Northern Ireland I must say that I would not be party to the British Army being there without the protection of extra legislation. I would not be prepared to put anyone's life at risk—and this happens daily—without this protection. The names of people who have been killed are reported to me morning after morning. We all have a responsibility for the people in Northern Ireland and we cannot wish it off. As long as there is an Army in Northern Ireland and I have this job I will see that it gets protection of this kind, not perhaps precisely in this form.

Mr. Heath: My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mr. Gilmour) has already said that the whole House will want to give serious consideration to the policy set out in the White Paper. The Leader of the House is present and he will hear what I have to say. In view of the importance of the proposals which the Government have put forward, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that it may not be enough just to have a debate on the Second Reading of the Bill? Does he realise that many may consider that we ought to have a debate on the White Paper first because of the importance of the proposals? Is it not the case that


the Executive tell—the Secretary of State reiterated this today—as a result of industrial action taken for political ends? What has resulted from that is that the Government now propose to sweep away everything which this House had decided upon in the last Constitution Act. The result is that because of the industrial action not only the Executive but everything we at Westminster had worked for for so long, everything which my right hon. Friends the Members for Penrith and the Border (Mr. Whitelaw) and Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) had worked for as Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland in the last Government, everything which the Executive had brought about, is being swept away by the Government's proposals.
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is therefore of the utmost importance that it should be made absolutely plain that there should be no wavering by the Government on this point and if there is to be a constitutional solution though a Constitutional Convention it must be on the basis of power-sharing in which the two communities can continue to work together and in which there is an Irish dimension? Has there been any consultation with the Prime Minister of the Republic on these proposals?
If there is any wavering by the Government I have no doubt that the consequences of an election on these proposals in Northern Ireland will bring this Parliament into a direct head-on conflict with the Constitutional Convention and its recommendations. It is therefore a brave step which the Government have decided to take. I would be the first to agree that every action in Northern Ireland is fraught with difficulty. All I ask is that we should recognise at this stage what are the dangers we are facing and that we should therefore have a proper opportunity to debate it.

Mr. Rees: I will certainly convey those thoughts to my right hon. Friend. These basic matters of Northern Ireland must be discussed in this House. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Ulster Workers Council strike brought down the Executive. It is my strong view that it has not swept everything away. There is no doubt in my mind that the concept of power-sharing in particular had a

profound effect in Northern Ireland, even upon people whom one would not have expected. There is also in Northern Ireland among a wide band of people a feeling, which perhaps the strike brought about, that they want to get together, that they believe they can talk together as Northern Irishmen and can produce a solution. At this stage, we should give them the chance to do so. As for not wavering, we cannot put it more firmly than we have in the White Paper, in paragraph 45. We have firmly set out the parameters there. To be fair to the Leader of the Opposition, these parameters arose from the legislation and the White Papers of his administration. We do not depart from them; they are important and must be taken into account—especially by people who aspire to be citizens of the United Kingdom.

Mr. McNamara: Will my right hon. Friend accept that those who do not go along with his desire to maintain and support the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act do not have, because of that, any less feeling for the safety of our constituents in Northern Ireland but simply doubt the wisdom of policies which made that legislation necessary? Will he accept that no one hon. Member can claim a greater degree than another of concern about people in Northern Ireland who may be killed or about our soldiers there? It is a question of policy and not of the principle at stake.
The White Paper is very much welcomed. The British people in particular—there is a British dimension to these matters as well as a Six Counties dimension and an Irish dimension—will clearly welcome the way in which my right hon. Friend has spelt out the terms under which we are prepared still to accept the Six Counties as part of the union. If they cannot be achieved, they could have no part in our Union.
Is my right hon. Friend also aware that we greatly welcome the spelling out of the fact that the Six Counties cannot insulate themselves from the Republic and that the Republic has an interest just as much as the people of Britain have in what goes on in the Six Counties?

Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend knows that when we discussed the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act in the last Parliament we all made it clear that it


was not the principle but the methods with which we were dealing. I know only too well my hon. Friend's concern for soldiers, from Yorkshire in particular, in whom he has shown a great interest and whom he visits whenever he goes to the Province.
As for the realities in the White Paper to which my hon. Friend referred, I can only reiterate that they were included for a purpose. Certain factors have arisen from the discussions of the last two years. I have no doubt that the phrase "Irish dimension" was used before the discussion paper came out. The phrase "power sharing" has been used before, and it, too, has emerged strongly in recent years. These are basic factors which the Convention must take into account. We are asking the elected representatives of Northern Ireland to make proposals to us to take account of those realities.

Mr. Kilfedder: The people of Northern Ireland were pleasantly surprised when it was announced that a White Paper would be produced so quickly. Does the Secretary of State not realise that the proposals which he has announced today, including the widespread discussions mentioned in paragraph 57, the Constitutional Convention and the referendum or referenda, all mean delay and that delay is the last thing we want in the situation in Northern Ireland—a situation which, the Leader of the Opposition should remember the Eire Prime Minister has said is one for the Ulster people to decide?
On the subject of Orders in Council, could a Northern Ireland Committee be constituted in the House to consider draft Orders before they are considered by the House? On the Constitutional Convention, would the right hon. Gentleman restore the office of Govenor of Northern Ireland and appoint the former Governor as chairman of the convention? He is a man who achieved widespread respect from every section of the community in the Province.

Mr. Rees: I feel strongly—this is the way that I worded the proposal—that the Convention should be chaired by someone from Northern Ireland. People have put it to me, perhaps using the term "Ulstermen" in a narrower context, that Ulster people want to "do it themselves". My view is, let Ulster

people do it themselves. I am sure that there are people of eminence whom we could consider for the post of chairman. I would advise the hon. Member to look at the Newfoundland Convention in the late 1940s. It was set up for a different purpose, but a great deal can be learned from its proceedings.
As for an election and the time taken, I am fully aware of all the problems that lie ahead because of the time factor, but it would be wrong to give any idea of a time now. Wider considerations must be taken into account.
As for a Northern Ireland Committee and the idea that legislation should be considered before it is debated in the Chamber, I must say that it is a bit much for representatives of organisations that saw fit not to use the Assembly, and did not enter it to discuss any legislation, to show concern, after the Assembly has broken down, with procedures in this House. Of course this matter will be considered because we have a responsibility to do so, but I hope that people who would not discuss any measure in the Assembly will not shout too loudly about the need for special arrangements here.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot allow this questioning to go on much longer, so I hope that, instead of speeches which could be made in a debate, we shall have short questions to the Secretary of State.

Mr. Duffy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a growing number of people in this country will welcome the more explicit references in the White Paper to a British dimension as well as an Irish dimension? The success of the Constitutional Convention will depend largely on the extent to which its members not only take into account the implications of both dimensions and their own personal aspirations but also to face up to their corresponding obligations? Will my right hon. Friend therefore continue to take every opportunity to sustain in Northern Ireland the awareness in everyone he meets of the realities of the situation, especially those relating to finance which he has put in paragraph 5 of the White Paper?

Mr. Rees: I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a British dimension and that there are obligations, which, as


he said, are clearly set out in the White Paper. As for increasing the awareness of the realities, which I believe is part of my responsibility, we shall be making special arrangements to see that the main ideas in the White Paper are brought to the notice of all in Northern Ireland in the near future. They obviously have to be taken into account before there are elections and meetings of representatives.

Rev. Ian Paisley: When does the Secretary of State think the Bill will come before the House? Would he comment on the present security situation? The White Paper mentions law and order. What considerations has he given to proposals for the formation of a Home Guard in Northern Ireland, since a similar organisation has been called into existence in the Republic? Could he also tell us the position of the Member who has been elected to the Assembly since it was prorogued? Will he be recognised as a Member of the Assembly and be able to make representations as a Member? He cannot sign the roll while the Assembly is prorogued. Last, will all the Orders in Council be subject to the affirmative procedure so that they can be discussed, or will he adopt the system that he protested against from the Opposition Front Bench, of Orders in Council which were not under that procedure?

Mr. Rees: The Bill will obviously have to be very soon, but I have no responsibility for its date. One thing relating to security which is very important is that anyone in Northern Ireland who wants to help the community to protect itself must belong to a responsible organisation like the police or the Army and not take this responsibility upon himself.
With regard to prorogation, I have followed the Act carefully and, I hope, correctly on all occasions. There had to be an election in North Antrim even though the Assembly was prorogued. The gentleman concerned is not being paid. I had no power to prevent that election and, indeed, since I still hoped for and was discussing the formation of a new Executive, it would have been wrong for me to prevent it. However, if this gentleman writes to me or to my hon.
Friends, he will be given every consideration as though he were properly signed in.

Mr. Wellbeloved: There will be widespread public welcome for the very clear statement set out in paragraph 45(b) of the White Paper; namely, that any future pattern of government for Northern Ireland must be acceptable to the British people as a whole. Have Her Majesty's Government yet started to give consideration to the manner in which this test of opinion is to be taken of the British public? Will such a referendum, or general election, or test of opinion—whatever it may be—also give the British people an opportunity to express a clear view on whether they wish the constitutional link between Great Britain and Northerin Ireland to be continued?

Mr. Rees: Certainly it is a fact that anything that emerges has to be acceptable to the citizens of the United Kingdom as a whole, and that means to the House of Commons. The normal way is by election and by the decision of all of us acting in this House as Members of the House.
The link between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom is expressed in Section 1 of the 1973 Act. Any referendum on that link would not be covered by the new Bill. It would be covered by the Act and the 10-year rule. It means that if at any time there needed to be a decision about the link between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, it would not emerge under this new legislation but would have to be brought before the House in a further Bill, carefully drawn up for that purpose, because the link between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is not just a matter for any Assembly meeting in Northern Ireland but for this Parliament acting on behalf of the whole of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Fell: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept my congratulations on his sheer guts in standing up, under great difficulty and provocation, for the policy which the Conservative Government advocated? Will he give an assurance that in no conditions will the present Government give way to anarchy again as they did give way to it a couple of months ago in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Rees: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening words. I can only say to him that the facts in terms of urban guerrilla warfare and the role of the Army have to be faced. I had to face them. I saw them at first hand. If the vast majority of a community support an industrial dispute going way beyond the people involved in it, and gain complete control of electricity supply, it is not possible for soldiers to deal with the situation. It is impossible for that to be done. One needs support from the community as a whole, and such support was not forthcoming in that situation. This is a factor which we all ought to take into account when considering the recommendations that come from the Convention.

Mr. Flannery: In paying tribute to the evident compassion which orders every action my right hon. Friend takes in regard to Northern Ireland, may I ask him whether he agrees with me that, when a question arises about under-representation of the people of Northern Ireland in this House, it should be taken into account that the minority in Northern Ireland within that framework are greatly under-represented in numbers, even though they are well represented in the person of one individual? Would not my right hon. Friend agree that this necessitates a very clear change of mind on the part of some hon. Members opposite in regard to what constitutes democracy and representation on an equal basis for all the people of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Rees: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's early words. It is a plain fact that, by the nature of the spread of population, the minority in Northern Ireland are under-represented in this House. Who knows what will happen at the next election? But in the Assembly, which is where the people of Northern Ireland could talk together under a system of the single transferable vote—which is the desirable form of election in that part of the United Kingdom—it was possible for everyone to be proportionally represented. In that way, they could talk to all their fellow citizens of Northern Ireland.

Mr. Kershaw: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is desirable that

we in this House should not take up positions about what the Convention should or should not do in advance of its sitting, otherwise we shall diminish very much its value in the eyes of the people of Ulster?

Mr. Rees: The hon. Gentleman is right, but certain basic things have to be said. What the Convention decides has to be reported back to this House. There should be no room for dubiety on certain basic issues. It is those issues that we have spelt out, and it is within these realities that the men and women elected to the Convention will be able to consider their plans.

Mr. Stallard: Will my right hon. Friend accept, from someone who has been fairly critical of recent political directives and initiatives in Northern Ireland, my congratulations on the White Paper and his statement? I believe that the speed with which my right hon. Friend has introduced the White Paper is a sign that he intends to take constructive action in the vacuum left by the fall of the Executive.
The whole House is concerned about the safety of our troops and of the civilians in Northern Ireland. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that perhaps repression and even more repression put that safety in danger. Will my right hon. Friend accept that one of those repressive measures which I have campaigned against and will continue to campaign against is internment? I suggest to my right hon. Friend constructively and sincerely that, as a sign of good faith, he should announce the immediate release of all those interned in 1971 in order to create an atmosphere in which this White Paper can be discussed constructively in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Rees: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has taken a great interest in these matters for a very long time. His congratulations to me on speed give me the opportunity to say something with which I know my two predecessors as Secretary of State will agree. In the Northern Ireland Office there are, I am glad to say, some of the finest members of the British Civil Service. Without them and their ideas and deep thought on this matter, we should not have been able to move so quickly.
I take the point made by my hon. Friend about people's feelings on repression, and certainly action by security forces sometimes aggravates this. I am not unaware of the situation and I will take into account what he has put to me.

Captain Orr: Since, I think, I was the first to advocate in the House some time ago the calling of a Constitutional Convention, it would be churlish of me if I did not congratulate the Secretary of State upon including it in his White Paper, and at least that portion of the White Paper will be warmly welcomed.
I recall to the right hon. Gentleman what the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) said. A very important ingredient is missing from this situation. It is a fact that this House will be the final arbiter after the Convention has done its job. In the meantime, it is this House which will legislate for Northern Ireland. Surely now, in advance of the House of Commons deciding about the future state of devolution and constitution of the United Kingdom, the House should show its good faith with the people of Northern Ireland and ensure that all of them, majority and minority, are represented fairly in the House.

Mr. Rees: The hon. and gallant Gentleman talks about extra representation here in the context of the people of Northern Ireland meeting to discuss their future. I must remind him that we would not be having Green Papers and White Papers and the like, and all the troubles going back over the years, if Northern Ireland were not rather different in its social and religious composition from the rest of the United Kingdom. It

was seen fit, rightly or wrongly, to have a separate institution there. That is what we are considering again, and it still puts Northern Ireland in a different position.
With regard to the hon. and gallant Gentleman's claim to paternity to the idea we have expressed here, I acknowledge that he has talked to me about it in the past. There are other claimants for fatherhood who will be putting that point to me. But it is shared paternity, and I am prepared to share it with many people.

Mr. Thorne: Will the Secretary of State clarify what he means in paragraph 53 of the White Paper by the words
independent Chairman…a person of high standing"—
I am sure that he does not mean a tall person—
and impartiality from Northern Ireland"?
Is there anyone left in Northern Ireland who is impartial?

Mr. Rees: After three months of living there, I can say, "yes, there is". I am sure that we shall find such a person, and a person who will be acceptable to those in the Assembly. They are the people who matter, because he will be chairing their deliberations.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Motion made, and Queston put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order (Statutory Instruments):
That the Porthmadog Harbour Revision Order 1974 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

Question agreed to.

WESTERN SAMOA (GIFT OF A MACE)

4.41 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): I beg to move,
That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that there be presented on behalf of this House a gift of a Mace to the Legislative Assembly of the Independent State of Western Samoa and assuring Her Majesty that this House will make good the expenses attending the same.
The gift to the Legislative Assembly of Western Samoa follows an established and very happy tradition that we send gifts from this House of Commons to other Legislatures within the Commonwealth. On 14th December 1972 my right hon. Friend the then Leader of the Opposition asked the then Prime Minister whether it was proposed that a gift should be presented on behalf of the House of Commons to the Parliament of Western Samoa to mark the tenth anniversary of independence. The right hon. Gentleman replied that no gift had been made on independence on 1st January 1962 because Western Samoa did not at that time apply to join the Commonwealth. However, in August 1970 Western Samoa did accede to the Commonwealth, so it seemed appropriate to mark the occasion by the presentation of a mace. It is that undertaking which we are now pleased to honour.
The mace, which is a beautiful piece of modern craftsmanship, was on display in the Upper Waiting Hall of the House from 10th to 21st June. If the House accepts the motion, as I am sure it will, arrange-

ments will, I hope, be made by you, Mr. Speaker, to send a small delegation from the House to present the gift later this year.
I therefore commend the motion to the House in the expectation that it will be accepted as an expression of our friendship and good will towards the Legislative Assembly of this sister Commonwealth country with which we have extremely happy and long ties. In doing so, I know that I shall be speaking for the whole House in expressing our good wishes for the future to the people and the Parliament of Western Samoa.

4.44 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gilmour: On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, I should like to associate all my right hon. and hon. Friends with the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was on 14th December 1972 that my right hon. Friend, in response to the then Leader of the Opposition, announced the decision to mark with an appropriate gift the independence of Western Samoa following her accession to the Commonwealth in August 1970. I feel sure that the mace which the House is giving will look as splendid in the Parliament of Western Samoa as it has done on display in the Palace of Westminster. I believe that it will be seen by all concerned as an appropriate symbol of the enduring links between our two countries.

Question put and agreed to.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

Orders of the Day — INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY (No. 2) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.45 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
During an excellent lunch which you, Mr. Speaker, provided for us today, you enjoined upon me that I had to be brief in the introduction of the Bill. I can respond heartily to the edict of the Chair, but I fancy that, though the Bill itself is probably uncontroversial and can be explained within a few sentences, some hon. Members may wish to adumbrate some thoughts on the general question of broadcasting, which may lead to some debate.
It might be more helpful to the House if I opened the debate very shortly by indicating the general nature of the Bill, listened to what the House has to say, and then, with the leave of the House, replied at the end of the debate to the points made. I propose, therefore, to take that course.
I can open the debate very shortly indeed. The House knows that on 10th April the Home Secretary announced that he was setting up a committee under the chairmanship of Lord Annan to inquire into the whole future of broadcasting. It is expected that that committee will take at least two and a half years to report and that there will, therefore, have to be some time thereafter for consultation upon its recommendations and for any appropriate legislation that may be necessary.
It follows that it would not be possible to complete that whole examination before the present time limit for the Independent Broadcasting Authority runs out in 1976. The only purpose of the Bill is to continue the functions of the IBA until 1979. That will give us five years, which we recognise as being well within any foreseeable time limit.
A similar extension will be arranged for the British Broadcasting Corporation under the provisions of its charter. In

addition, its licence and agreement will be extended. There again, as is customary, the proposals will be debated in the House.
I need say no more at this stage except this. Inevitably, one of the questions in the minds of hon. Members will be whether this means that for five years the whole future of broadcasting is frozen, that no decisions will be made until Lord Annan reports, and that at every Question Time I shall rise to say "Wait for Annan". All that I can say is that we have obviously given to Annan a very wide-ranging brief to consider the whole future of broadcasting in all its many aspects, and it would be nonsense not to consider all the committee's recommendations before we act in any particular sphere. But the Crawford Committee, for instance, is reporting some time this summer and its recommendations are pertinent to some of the urgent problems, particularly in relation to coverage in Wales. If it is possible, on the recommendation of Crawford, for instance, to take decisions which in no way prejudice the overall consideration of broadcasting by Annan, we would want to do so. So this will not freeze broadcasting for five years.
There is an obvious inhibition against taking decisions which may be against the general tenor of the recommendations that may come from Annan, and we would not want to do that. But in relation to specific proposals on which we could act, we should be willing to act.

Mr. Norman Fowler: The Annan Committee does not exactly seem to have got off to a flying start. Can the hon. Gentleman give guidance as to when the membership of the Annan Committee is to be announced? We have been waiting for some time for such an announcement.

Mr. Lyon: I agree that the composition of the Committee has caused some difficulties and has been attended by a longer delay than I would have wished. I cannot go into the nature of those difficulties, but there have been some consultations, not least with the Opposition, about the nature of the composition. We hope that it will be possible to make an early announcement about the composition of the committee.

4.50 p.m.

Sir John Eden: The Minister has carefully and concisely described the nature and contents of the Bill. He rightly surmised that this opportunity might lead us into a debate of slightly wider dimensions than his opening remarks perhaps anticipated. Although we shall inevitably be discussing the work of the IBA, the independent television companies and the independent local radio stations, it would be impossible to do so in isolation. We cannot separate this sector of broadcasting activity from the rest of broadcasting, or even from the other forms of the communications media. Inevitably, therefore, there will be some spill-over during the debate into the wider scene, and the House will agree that it will be much to the assistance of hon. Members if, as he intimated he would, the Minister replies to as many of the points as possible at the conclusion of the debate.
However, since the Bill is primarily about the IBA we should first acknowledge that we are not talking about an empty set of initials. In discussing the authority we are discussing the work of individuals. They work as a most effective team, and much of the credit for this goes to the Director-General and the Chairman. Lord Aylestone is due to retire at the end of this calendar year after having been chairman of the authority for, I think, seven years. He has given great service not just to the authority but to broadcasting as a whole.
Those hon. Members who witnessed his work in the House will readily acknowledge the wide experience and calm judgment he has brought to the IBA. His certainly has been a counsel of wisdom and understanding. Over recent years the volume of work at the authority has increased considerably. This has added to the burdens of the Director-General and his officials and has meant a much heavier work load for the authority members, and we should recognise that fact. Especially has this been so in the development of independent local radio.
I shall not go into detail on the nature of the work in which the authority members have been involved, but I underline that their job is far from being just a sinecure. It involves them in a great deal of detailed and responsible work. I am

sure that we are all grateful for the way in which they fulfil their duties.
Independent local radio is still in the process of getting under way. Altogether I think that 27 stations have been appointed, and five of these are now on the air. That which has probably received most attention from hon. Members, from those who follow these matters, and particularly in the journals and professional papers associated with the medium, has been the London Broadcasting Company. LBC had a great many difficulties when it started. I think that it is now getting over them. Certainly, the signs are very much more encouraging and it is fair to say that it has now found the right format. I hope that it will get encouragement to proceed. It has started out at a time of extreme economic difficulties any way, but I do not ignore that some of its problems were of its own creation. Perhaps they can be put down most charitably to over-enthusiasm in the early stages of the venture.
At any rate the local stations deserve every possible encouragement. Of the 27 stations which have already been appointed, equipment is now being ordered and firm commitments entered into for 19. By tonight I think, with the announcement about another two—Teesside and Nottingham—13 of these will actually have been designated. Six are not yet on the air—Edinburgh, Sheffield, Liverpool, Tyneside, Plymouth and Swansea—but are shortly to go forward. I hope that the Minister will take this chance to reveal a little of the Government's thinking and attitude towards local radio. There is some uncertainty about the Government's general intentions towards these stations, particularly those which have to be allocated for the six towns and cities I have just mentioned. Others are to be operated soon at Wolverhampton, Ipswich, Reading, Bradford, Portsmouth and, most important, Belfast.
These stations must go forward and I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to make clear that it is the Government's firm intention that they should do so. I hope that the Government will keep to the overall programme which was set out for the evolutionary development of independent local radio because I have


no doubt that as these stations gain experience they will increasingly contribute something of great value to the communities in which they are located. That is certainly true of the BBC's local radio stations. In my opinion they are immensely successful. Of course, they have the vast advantage of the back-up of the rest of the superstructure and expertise of the BBC. That is a point to their credit and to their advantage. Nevertheless, it is right to have an element of choice and competition in radio as much as we now have it in television. This should apply not just at national level but at local city, town and community level. I hope that we shall therefore have from the Minister later a declaration of the Government's philosophy and approach to this important subject.
Also of service to the community can be, and to some extent already are, the television programmes originated under licence and transmitted by means of cable. Five experimental stations are now operating. The licence for them was very restrictive, and deliberately so. These experiments were designed to achieve only a limited objective. However, I think it is time to move to the next stage.
It would be sensible to encourage a further step in the process of experimentation in community cable television. There is undoubtedly, within the context of experiments, wider scope for programme transmission and programme origination which could now usefully be brought forward. While retaining the dominant local identity which is, at this stage, the primary purpose of the experiments, there is the possibility that other elements might be introduced into programme planning which would bring a wide interest to those of the viewing public connected to that system.
I particularly consider that encouragement should be given to experiments in various forms of funding and financing for cable television. I do not know whether all hon. Members recognise that the companies now engaged in these experiments are doing so at their own expense. They are not allowed by the terms of the licence to sell advertising space or to get any other revenue. It would be as well now to start experimenting with different forms of financing. The companies would not in any case be able

to continue with the experiments for much longer, and enough is becoming known to the Government and the Minister and his advisers to justify the experiments being taken a step further and being given wider encouragement.
One method of achieving this might be to establish some form of overlord, or overseeing body—not a great, pompous superstructure, but something reasonably small and independent which would report to the Minister. I say this because I have some recollection of the difficulty of trying to run these experiments from the Department, which is an unsatisfactory arrangement. I did my best to operate it, but it is not a situation which is tenable for long.
I strongly recommend that an early opportunity be taken to go a step further and perhaps establish an independent, authoritative body. The work done so far in these experiments, though on a limited scale, has attracted substantial and widespread international interest, but it has also placed a burden on the companies themselves. The Central Office of Information is keen to encourage visitors to take up executives' time and the companies are only too proud to show off what they have got, but they are operating on tight budgets, on limited resources, and now is the time to take a further step forward.
On the practical side, the Minister, in consultation with his colleagues, could encourage standardisation of the cable communication systems, but not with a view to bringing about, for example, a Post Office monopoly in transmission of this means of communication, which would be unnecessary. In standardisation a multiplicity of different kinds and types of systems could be fitted into an overall national—or, depending upon events, wider than national—scheme, bearing in mind the different forms of information which could be conveyed by cable to the home of the individual citizen.
Cable as a means of communication is advancing in other countries, not just for the purposes of the telephone but for a whole variety of other factors, and the time is ripe in this country for positive encouragement of development. This is a subject which the Annan Committee will be considering, and if my suggestion for widening the basis of the experiments


is adopted by the Government, the Committee will have the benefit of seeing something of the practical evidence.
The Annan Committee will also be taking account of various views expressed about the fourth channel, and no doubt about other channels which will become available when re-engineering of the VHF system has been completed. When I was a Minister I called for submission of proposals on the application of the fourth channel. Many proposals were received. They were immensely valuable, and by far the majority of them had been carefully thought through and were wide ranging in their variety. Together they indicated a substantial degree of informed public participation. and an involvement of experts in this very important matter.
I cannot now enumerate the entire list of proposals, but the Minister will know that it is substantial. Among them was Anthony Smith's interesting proposal for a national television foundation, and there was an imaginative proposal by John Birt and David Elstein for a centrally scheduled national channel complementary to ITV 1. There was also a number of important proposals in connection with the application of a channel for educational purposes. That last suggestion would give rise, more than most of the others, to difficulties in relation to financing and so it would be difficult to proceed along any esoteric line of that sort. The same problem, financing, would make it unlikely that it would be sensible to proceed with a solution involving the BBC.
In my opinion we should seek to make the best use of the expertise and resources available to us through the independent television companies and the IBA. I hope that the Minister will indicate what may be the Government's approach to this matter. He said, generously, that he would not shrug off proposals put to him on the ground that they must be a matter for consideration by Annan. It would be helpful if the Minister would disclose some of his thinking, and that of his colleagues, regarding the possible applications of the fourth channel.
Consideration of this matter gives rise to a question which I was asked frequently and which no doubt Annan will be asking—what do the people want? Do viewers want more television? In

trying to answer that one is brought up against the difficulty of identifying viewers' opinion. Who are the viewers? How can we possibly find the typical viewer? How can we interpret the collective opinions of viewers? One possible way of doing that and of being more sensitive to viewers' opinions is to have an improved system of communication between broadcasters and viewers.
Both broadcasting organisations, the BBC and the IBA, have their general advisory councils and a system carried through into the regions for receiving public comment or viewers' reactions to programmes. This is an important beginning, but I see it only as a beginning. It should be encouraged to develop much further. This is something which clearly need not wait on Annan. In fact, the further developed it is by the time the Annan committee of inquiry gets under way with its contemplation of these important matters, of greater benefit will this he to that committee.
Therefore, will the Minister give encouragement to the BBC and the IBA to press on with the improvements they have begun in identifying their general advisory councils as separate bodies for the benefit of viewers, in giving publicity to their existence, and in ensuring that the views of the GACs receive independent public consideration, and are not always kept solely in house? I believe that the BBC has already started to do this. I have seen one or two interesting reports, particularly about the effect on children of the portrayal of violence on the screen.
That leads me on to express an anxiety that I believe has become apparent to every right hon. and hon. Member, the anxiety felt by many people about the possible effect of some programmes which are prominently and frequently featured on television. There is growing worry at the possible effects on impressionable minds of violence portrayed on the screen. There is clearly an urgent need for research. We know little about the subject, yet it is one of immense importance and is difficult to pin down with any degree of precision or accuracy. One is invariably forced back upon individual hunch and judgment.
In a report presented recently to the Social Morality Council, and published


in a helpful booklet called "The Future of Broadcasting", the desirability of research was discussed on page 20, as follows:
Given the importance to society of knowing how it is affected by television, it is regrettable that social science research into the influence of mass communicators, of the kind currently being conducted in university centres of investigation at Leeds, Leicester and London, is still the Cinderella of the communications industry, and one of our firmest conclusions is that such research should be given a high priority both by Government and by the broadcasting institutions themselves.
I am aware of the difficulties of proceeding along those lines, and I know what has already been attempted. But there is certainly a case for doing more, perhaps for identifying a narrower sector and proceeding with a well-constructed piece of research as a matter of urgency.
In answer to an intervention, the Minister was not yet able to disclose the full membership of the Annan Committee. I believe that so far we have only the name of the chairman and the terms of reference. We must move ahead with the committee. I say that not because I have any special or peculiar interest in its composition—I know how difficult it is to get people to come together to work on something of that kind—but because I know how much time is likely to be involved when the committee gets down to its job. I believe that at least two and a half years is expected to go by from the time it starts its work until its report is available to the Government. If we allow another year before the Government of the day come to their conclusions on the basis of what will undoubtedly be a considerable piece of work, we see that it will be three and a half years before we know what is likely to happen in the next stages of the structure of broadcasting in this county.
I am encouraged that this is not to be a period of sterility, of non-activity, and that decisions will still be taken by the Government, though perhaps not affecting the overall structure of broadcasting. I hope that they will not hesitate to take those decisions. As I made clear when I made my statement to the House, I saw the justification for maintaining the existing structure for a period longer even than that proposed by the present Government. But I was careful to avoid locking myself in for that period and avoiding

making any decisions on the further development of broadcasting and making available to the people of this country some of the new technical achievements as they come forward.
Most important—the Minister touched on this, and perhaps he will elaborate on it when he replies—is the effect on such matters as Wales and the Government's reaction to Crawford. The Minister says that Crawford will report by this summer. We are in the summer. Has Crawford reported? Does the Minister have a copy of Crawford now? If so, will he soon make it public? Will he publish Crawford before the end of the Summer Recess? Will he give an early indication of when lie expects to be able to take action in relation to some of the peculiar regional problems which he highlighted by his reference to the situation in Wales?
I ask myself why the Government have chosen 1979 in preference to 1981. I thought that, even if we had eventually come to the decision ourselves as a Government to introduce some form of inquiry into broadcasting, the period needed for stability in the structure of broadcasting had to be long, because time was necessary for the committee of inquiry to report. But apart from that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the major reason for the previous Government's decision was the limited impact that some of the more advanced technical developments would be likely to have on the structure of broadcasting in the next few years.
Therefore, why have the Government chosen 1979? If the Minister had kept 1981 the authority could, hopefully, have carried through its review of the companies' performance in which it is now engaged. If it had felt it desirable, that could have led to considering that the contract should be advertised for competition. That must now be ruled out, for the time span to 1979 is much too short.
The Select Committee which investigated the matter made a reference to the desirability of introducing rolling con tracts. The House will have seen observations by the authority recently in its little leaflet called "The Authority's Plans for 1976–79", in which it said:
The length of the extension
—that is, to 1979—


restricts also the type of contract that can be offered. In principle the Authority would be in favour of rolling contracts as in radio, probably with a three-year initial run and a one-year 'roll'. This would help to increase the stability of the system.
Apparently it now feels, for reasons one can fully understand, that it is not able to do so because the period up to 1979 does not allow for the degree of flexibility that it would need.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that there are now effectively no circumstances in which any independent television company could lose its contract before 1979?

Sir J. Eden: I was referring to the views expressed by the authority in its own published document. For greater accuracy I shall refer to the document, in which it is said:
In the circumstances of an expected extension of its life until 1981, the Authority had not ruled out the possibility that its review might lead it to the conclusion in a particular case that the contract should be advertised for competition. An extension of only three years from 1976, however, is likely to make such a possibility unrealistic.
I was going no further than that and questioning what is the thinking behind the Government's decision to go for 1979 rather than 1981. I hope that it has nothing to do with a report which I understand is to be published next week by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. My hon. Friends will remember that there was a leak about that a short time ago. It appeared that a group much favoured the establishment of a national broadcasting commission. That seemed to imply that the Labour Party was intent on abolishing independent television. Perhaps when the report is published we shall know the position more clearly. We shall want to know the Government's views. Perhaps the later stages of the Bill will give us an opportunity to explore the matter further if we do not receive a sufficiently forthcoming answer from the Minister.
It will be seen that, although this is a short Bill, it gives rise to questions of immense significance and importance. Perhaps the most important matter of all is the consideration that we all need to give to the direction in which we are going in broadcasting and in encouraging further broadcasting. I referred earlier

to the report of the Social Morality Council. I shall give one further quotation from it by way of conclusion. The final remarks of the published document read:
We have throughout accepted that broadcasting cannot and should not impose tastes and choices on listeners and viewers. But we believe it can and should make available to them all that is best in the range of human interests and activities—sometimes to solace, sometimes to challenge—but always with a profound respect for truth, and a serious regard for the human dignity and individual variety of its audience…".
Those are profound sentiments which deserve full consideration whenever the House is discussing broadcasting matters. Communications is an immensely influential medium and in any action that we take in this House we should be seeking to ensure that it is devoted to the common good.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Philip Whitehead: I hope that your relief, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at seeing me for once in my place will not be lessened if I stray from the point of the debate.
It is a very small point upon which we must build the edifice of the debate. The Bill, if I understand it correctly, alters only one date in the existing legislation by substituting 1979 for 1976. The right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) asked "Why 1979?" The plain man's answer is that it is 1979 because the Annan Committee in its first incarnation was scrapped by the right hon. Gentleman's Government. I find it strange that he should come to the House with protestations about the delay in appointing the other members of the Annan Committee when Lord Annan was appointed to do the job in 1970 and was unceremoniously sent packing by the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Chataway). That is why we are now having to extend the legislation until 1979. That is why three extra years must be taken and why a number of embarrassing anomalies which are consequent upon this amending legislation will become clear in the course of the debate.
Like everyone else, I welcome the setting-up of the Annan Committee. The fact that the committee has been set up has taken out of the context of this debate some of the more expansive pro-


posals—for example, the fourth channel, an alteration in the financial basis of broadcasting and other matters which have been discussed in the House in the past. Clearly such matters must await the deliberations of the Annan Committee. No Government, not this one or the next one, would now feel able to introduce or be justified in introducing legislation themselves. The dreaded document that is emerging from the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, slowly though the mills are grinding, which will be published on Wednesday next, and to which I am a signatory, is intended as a contribution to the wider debate about broadcasting, and certainly for submission to the Annan Committee. It is not in any sense a replacement.
The Opposition when in Government scrapped the Annan Committee. They did so largely because they wished to introduce commercial radio, which they now plaintively ask us not merely to keep and sustain but to expand. They knew that there was no public demand for commercial radio in the form in which it was introduced and in the form in which it was canvassed for so long by the hon. Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan).

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the chairman of the committee which produced the report—namely, the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Moon man)—was quoted as saying that the financial basis of broadcasting could be altered within a year and without reference to the Annan Committee?

Mr. Whitehead: That is inaccurate at first base because my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman) was not the chairman of the committee. There have been a number of chairmen. There have been rolling chairmen rather like rolling contracts. The rolling period of my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon was very short. The chairman at the time that the report was published was, I think, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department before he had responsibilities quite apart from broadcasting within the Government.
The Annan Committee will be discussing finance, the allocation of the

fourth channel and scheduling. We shall all have to contain our impatience about matters which are contained within that area which the Committee must discuss. I must confess to occasional exasperation when I see the enormous duopoly of the BBC and the independent television companies as presently constituted. They organise themselves to spend large sums, much of which is public money, on precise duplication of the World Cup events going on in Germany, offering competition only in the sense that we can get Bobby Charlton on one channel and Jackie Charlton on another. These are matters which will be considered along with the possible need for some overall scheduling body as recommended in the proposals that have already been referred to by the Committee.
We are discussing the legitimate fears of the commercial television and radio contractors—let us not call them independent contractors—and the great princes of the BBC and the establishment which they run, given the situation which has arisen in that we must extend the legislation until 1979. What will happen to them in the meantime? I accept that those uncertainties must be set aside, and that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office must do what they can to relieve those anxieties.
Lord Annan will be considering the system as it is now. His committee should not be considering subtle or unsubtle additions to the system slipped in by this or any other Government effectively to pre-empt the widespread review of the whole system which must come.
To return to the Bill, we are discussing the role of the IBA. If the Bill passes through this House and another place, the Independent Broadcasting Authority will have all its functions extended until 1979, and it will maintain a scrutiny over the same television companies—I think that there will not be others—and over commercial radio such as it is.
The IBA was criticised recently by a Select Committee. The Select Committee's report was brushed aside by the Conservative Government. We had a perfunctory debate about it and a document of reply which dismissed the report and suggested that the serious recommendations of the Select Committee were


not of much account. One recommendation—I think it was Recommendation 29—was to set up the Annan Committee. There were several other recommendations, some of which have been acted upon by the IBA and some of which have not. There were some recommendations which the IBA could have acted upon, given time and the measure of all-party and public criticism which gave weight to the Committee's proposals.
I mention only one recommendation which relates directly to what the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West said about the IBA contracts. Recommendation 5 of the Select Committee's report indicated a weakness of the existing system, even without the present problem—which is that there are no real sanctions upon the companies which transgress so much that in other circumstances they might have lost their licence. Paragraph 40 of the Select Committee's report reads as follows:
While fully endorsing the need for stability of employment within the industry, Your Committee would like to point out that some instability is characteristic of all enterprise, and that in the case of independent television, a system favouring the sitting tenant (subject to adequate performance) would give the companies a perpetual monopoly in selling television advertising time in so far as there is virtually no competition between them. Your Committee feel that some means needs to be found whereby, periodically and quite explicitly, it becomes possible for new blood to compete for contracts even with companies whose performance has not been faulted and recommend that this be examined as part of the review of the system of contracts.
That is not the situation post-1976 and up to 1979. The sitting tenant will be guaranteed, he will be in no danger whatsoever even if his performance is faulty. I see no indication in the IBA's statement which was quoted by the right hon. Gentleman that the IBA feels that it could exercise its powers under the existing legislation in the event of a defaulting or faulty contractor.
The noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, to whom I also pay tribute, is a man of Delphic utterance. At the Press conference which launched this document he said:
We can see no real need to change at this period of time unless of course there is a reason for change.
I am not quite sure what he means by that. I think he means that he will not alter anything unless he is forced to do so. The Press release goes on to say:

The IBA will decide, in the light of the review to be made of each company's ability and willingness to take remedial measures that may be required, whether any particular limitations or restrictions should be attached to the contract that is awarded from 1976.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, the statement also indicated that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that a contract might be advertised. But the general expectation is that when this review has been carried out by the five wise men from the IBA who are to visit all the companies, in 1976 the IBA will go along with whatever it finds for another three years. All that will happen is some genteel discussion whether any particular limitations or restrictions should be attached to the contract.
In practice, that means that the sanctions which the IBA now has upon the companies are significantly less powerful than they have thus far been since the first institution of independent television. Although those sanctions were not taken seriously in the early years of the first Director-General, they have been taken seriously since Lord Hill's incumbency as chairman, and have certainly been taken seriously since 1967.
I do not believe that those powers will remain with the IBA unless my hon. and learned Friend and his noble Friend spell out clearly to the IBA that there must still be circumstances in which television companies can lose their contracts because of unsatisfactory performance. If the companies feel that they can freewheel downhill, that they can coast away, diversify, liquidate their risk capital and get what they can back from the system until 1979, if they feel that the Annan Committee is going badly for commercial television, then no effective sanctions will rest with the IBA. Those sanctions should be there. The power to call in a contract should be specifically retained and the IBA should be told that it must put its dentures back in and, if necessary, bite.
The noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, wants an early decision on commercial radio, and I have a great deal of sympathy with him. The IBA found itself badly caught by the premature election. The last contract which it put out for tender was on 20th February during the period of the election campaign. I could not understand from the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West whether he thought


that contracts had been granted for 27 stations. That is not so. There are 11, and there will be 13 tonight if Nottingham and Teesside have their contractors appointed. Had it not been for the change of Government, by now another five tenders would have been put out.
My hon. and learned Friend is still trying to realise that he has responsibility for broadcasting as well as his other wide responsibilities within the Home Office, but I say to him that I am not sure that we should have allowed the IBA to go ahead with the interviewing of potential contractors—I think there were only two in the case of the Nottingham contract—for the tenders which have been put out.
The commercial radio stations which have been allocated fulfil no great public need. Metropolitan areas which already have an extensive choice of radio and television are being given yet more choice. We have already established commercial radio stations in Sheffield, Glasgow and Manchester. Tonight there is to be an announcement about Nottingham which already has a BBC radio station, which is a form of local radio. If we discount the siren songs of Jimmy Gordon and others which have been directed towards my noble Friend, the real argument for the extension and preservation of the commercial radio system is that it will allow independent radio news, so-called, the London Broadcasting Company, which is now in an ailing state, to survive.

Mr. Julian Critchley: If that is the ailing state the hon. Member describes, is that due to the large sum in fees LBC frequently pays the hon. Member to appear on that programme?

Mr. Whitehead: The last time I appeared on LBC I was asked by a lady whether I would like a cup of coffee. I said "Yes". She said, "In that case have you got a twopenny piece?" That is the kind of fee paid by the LBC. I have received no remuneration from LBC this year.
The difficulty for LBC is that it is now in a make-or-break situation. The company faces a serious situation. The next three months are supposed to be the crucial ones.
According to a usually well-informed source, the magazine Broadcast of one month ago, we are told that there is something like £1 million left in the kitty for the company which could operate the station for well over six months, but if revenue does not start showing worthwhile upturns over the next three months then clearly the station's backers will be less and less willing to authorise continued spending. It went on to say that LBC was finding that it cost to operate the station—plus the independent radio news service—around £80,000 to £100,000 a month, which is a lot of money for a company which finds it difficult at the moment to attract advertising.
I have a certain sympathy for the London Broadcasting Company. It went on the air and with a courageous operation produced round-the-clock news broadcasts. It found there was less of a need for that service from the other radio stations. It found that costs have been going up with inflation. It found the advertisers less willing to bite and the advertising rates not at all attractive when it came to the business of raising revenue.
If we are to retain any form of commercial radio, if LBC is to be one of the stations that survive until 1979, it may well be that we shall have to revert to one at least of the proposals advanced in the committee considering the Sound Broadcasting Bill of 1972, which was that the commercial news service should be an adjunct of the ITN and that the ITN, with its world-wide resources and its proven expertise, should be responsible for providing an alternative service of radio news using and taking over, with necessary compensation if needed, the facilities of the LBC. My view is that the fault to some degree lies with the IBA. The IBA was given this system to operate under the legislation of two years ago. The IBA should have foreseen rather more of the difficulties which have overtaken LBC than has been the case.
I would make another criticism which should be aired in a debate of this kind where we are proposing to extend the service. No so long ago the IBA allowed an executive of the authority, who had been responsible for the scrutiny of some of the programme contracts which were coming before the authority for commercial radio, to take up an appointment with one of those companies. I have


the gravest misgivings about the appointment of Mr. Christopher Lucas to Radio Forth in Scotland at a salary of £7,000 a year. This was something which the authority should not have allowed.
I am not at all persuaded by the arguments advanced in the letter of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) on this subject. It seems to me quite wrong that potential contractors—we are now talking about a situation where everything is still "up for grabs" and people are submitting their bids for these contracts—should be placed in a position where they feel that those who are reading, scrutinising, checking the applications might at a later stage become executives of competing companies coming up for interview for a particular station.
I am sorry that Mr. Lucas was appointed in this way. I am sorry that the Government, whom I support, have not seen fit to say something to the IBA about its rather supine rôle in letting this happen and in not taking action against Radio Forth for doing so.
I would favour the elimination of the commercial radio services, as we now see them. I see no reason why there should not be in the future many forms of local radio funded in different ways. I do not believe that these stations serve any very great function. I believe it would be better if we had been able to start new experiments in local radio—had not many of the most lucrative potential areas been pre-empted by the companies which have been given contracts. I accept that for legal as well as political reasons it may not be possible to remove the companies that are there already. I would therefore recommend that we should terminate the commercial radio expansion.
There are 12 stations operating. There are 20 BBC local radio stations. That is an adequate number on either side for the Annan Committee to consider over the next few years—how effective local radio is, what the demand for it is and how it should be financed—given those two alternative systems. There are other systems.
About 1½ million people listen regularly to BBC local radio, taking Great Britain as a whole. I should imagine that a large number will listen to stations

such as Radio Clyde, Radio Piccadilly, the Birmingham station and the others. Let us see what kind of service they get. Let us see how effectively they can be financed, policed and scrutinised, and let the Annan Committee decide what form local radio should take in the 1980s.
I wish to speak about the cable experiment. I accept a good deal of what the right hon. Gentleman said. The cable experiment has now gone on for a considerable period. I hope those civil servants who have the unenviable job of supervising these five stations are learning a great deal about the place of cable within the community. I should like to see some form of overlord body set up to supervise cable analogous to the two public authorities we already have. I do not believe that we can now put cable under the aegis of the IBA, and therefore I may technically be out of order in raising this point. We should be prepared to admit, at least in principle, that cable and local cable companies are here to stay and that the experiment to that degree at least should be strengthened and put on a firm footing.
The right hon. Gentleman said these companies are taking a tremendous risk. That would be true if these companies had been formed only for, and intended to subsist only by, the broadcasting by wire of local cable services. But they are all great multi-media conglomerate companies of one kind or another which have interests in local radio, in television, in all the hardware and software involved. There is not all that much risk for those backing the five stations because they have put one small—comparatively insignificant for them—investment in an area which is potentially more lucrative for them than probably any other.
I do not think we should shed too many tears over their financial hardships now. I do not believe that we should take the argument of financial hardship which may be adduced by one or more of the five experimental stations as a reason for bringing in what most of them would like to see in an ideal world from their point of view, which is pay-TV or some experiment of that short.
Broadcasting throughout Europe is in a state of flux. We may think that it is moving in one direction in this country. It is moving in other directions elsewhere. In France at the moment the monopoly


of the ORTF is threatened probably for the first time. We may see before the end of the year a competing unashamedly commercial system in that country. The same is true in Italy.
In this country we have at the moment under scrutiny an alternative commercial system, and that system should not be dismissed lightly. Its achievements must be acknowledged. If in this legislation we are to extend the scrutiny of a statutory authority such as the IBA for another three years to regulate television and radio, we must be extremely careful that in so doing we do not diminish its powers to scrutinise, or leave those under scrutiny with excessive power to produce programmes and a general broadcasting output which may not be as much in the public interest or for the public good as the best of which they are capable. Personally, I think that there is now no alternative but to allow the authority to go on much as it is until 1979, but in this debate we should say clearly to the authority that it must continue to be a watchdog—and not merely to growl but occasionally to bite—right up to 1979.

5.52 p.m.

Sir Paul Bryan: I begin by declaring my interest as a director of Granada Television and of Greater Manchester Independent Radio Limited.
Those of us who took part in the various stages of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Bill will know that ITV happens to be going through a rather difficult patch in terms of viability. It was badly hit by the three-day week, with its consequent cut in broadcasting hours, and is now suffering from a fairly serious drop in advertising revenue. But what matters in the long run is not the ups and downs of the constituent companies but the consistent quality of its product.
In this respect the public enjoyed a good period of viewing during the stewardship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden). During his tour of office thousands came to the new and real joy of colour television. The long-overdue relaxation of broadcasting hours brought entertainment to a new audience in the afternoons and late evenings. There have been plenty of outstanding programmes. Had my right

hon. Friend remained in office a little longer, I like to think that he would have authorised ITV2.

Mr. Whitehead: Another give away.

Sir P. Bryan: Even on the overbold assumption that the current product is satisfactory to the public, I do not subscribe to the idea that those now making programmes have a divine right to do so, unchanged, for all time. Changes there will be, and should be, either as a result of legislation following an Annantype report or under the normal powers of the IBA, stimulated by the various technical advances that take place from time to time. But when we have changes—and I say "when", because I am certain that we shall have them—I would advise the Government of the day to take a lesson from past ITV experience so that we can make our changes in some better way.
The reallocation of company franchises in 1968 was an object lesson in how to introduce change with maximum dislocation of the industry, maximum loss of confidence in its creative and administrative staff, and maximum loss of quality in its programme.
From about 1965 it became known that the new companies were to come and some existing companies were to go. So for three years staff were thoroughly demoralised, while doubt spread whether their own companies would continue to exist, and offers of hypothetical new employment were being bandied about. Meanwhile, naturally enough, investment in programmes suffered. Since programmes have to be planned at least 18 months ahead, even the most altruistic management thought twice about committing its company to expensive programmes which might never be shown.
The difficulties of setting up a new television company were grossly underestimated. I remember somebody high up in ITA, who shall be nameless, saying to me that if the London Weekend application backed, as it was, by a quite outstanding collection of proved television talent, were turned down, this would prove that ITV was, in effect, closed to all newcomers—and I believe in a way that it would have been closed to them. Nevertheless, events proved that a mass of newly-gathered talent is not neces-


sarily a team. Indeed, almost by definition quite the opposite is the case. London Weekend went through long and bitter birth pangs. Its audience suffered. Nor did Yorkshire and Harlech find those early days particularly easy. All in all, the Hill revolution—in its capacity to maintain a prolonged period of ferment without allowing any progress—was equalled only by the cultural revolution which was going on at much the same time in China.
The present Bill is welcome since it ensures another three years of stability which, in its present economic difficulties, is what broadcasting needs. Reformers need not be worried that broadcasters will sink into a period of unhealthy and self-satisfied ease. After a four-year reprieve it seems that the Annan Committee is upon us and over the next two or three years the best and busiest brains in the industry will be even busier justifying their present practices to the committee, with all the work that such committees generate.
I should like to make some suggestion regarding the nature of the committee. The Pilkington Committee had over 100 meetings, plus visits to relevant establishments in this country and trips abroad. This was a lot of labour to ask of its members. Such prolonged labour is bound to limit the field of those willing to serve. It definitely precludes any professional at present employed in the industry or indeed employed in a responsible job elsewhere.
Would it not be better to have mainly a full-time committee which sat daily for a much shorter period? I feel that it would be easier to get able men seconded full time from their present employment for a limited period than if they were asked to give up a day a week or a much longer stretch of time.
I have in mind something on the lines of Lord James's Committee on Teacher Education and Training where a fairly small committee of full and part-time members was required to produce a report within a year. A fast-moving committee of this sort would be much better in every way for the industry. It would shorten the period of uncertainty. As see it, under the present arrangements from the day the committee first sits to the actual effect of its decisions in the industry we

have a period of about five years spanning at least two General Elections.
From what has already been said, clearly it is not too late to make some suggestions regarding the choice of individuals whom the Government intend to invite to join the committee. Could we, for a change, have a majority of members who enjoy television, who spend a lot of time watching television, much of it with their children, and who happily acknowledge that it means a lot to them and to their families? Two or three mothers in this category would provide a marvellous and healthy leavening to the standard team of academics and oldish establishment figures. They would also be far more representative of the audience which the BBC and ITV are duty bound, and by law required, to entertain and inform.
The 14 people who served on the Pilkington Committee included two knights, two future knights, five CBEs, one OBE, one Ph.D.—an impressive total of distinguished service to the country and no doubt highly responsible in every respect, but not in my view capable of representing the viewing public and its children. The committee had one solitary married woman to face this phalanx of male authority.
We must never forget in all our discussions, committees and legislation that the object of our efforts is to present an acceptable and welcome choice of programmes to the viewer. Questions of control by the Government, the IBA or the BBC, accessibility, the structure of the industry and the many other relevant aspects of broadcasting which we like to discuss mean nothing to 99 per cent. of our population compared with the importance of their ability to receive what they—not we—consider a good programme.
I end my remarks with a few words about local radio. There is some difference of opinion about the number of stations. I do not think that it matters very much. As I understand it, the present situation is that there are 13 contracts out. Of those, five are on the air. Capital and LBC have been on the air in London for nine months. Clyde and Birmingham have been on the air for four months. Manchester has been on the air for three months. It is early days to report on an experiment of this kind, and it is an experiment. It is quite unparalleled in any other part of the world.


There is nothing quite like it competing with a vast and established national programme like the BBC, with its four different wavelengths.
The area about which I know most is my own area of Manchester. The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) came out with his usual arrogant words about there being no demand and no public need. But who is he to say that there is no demand in Manchester? I happen to know Manchester. It is clear from the figures that we have there that the demand is greater than we expected. We are more than up to budget in both audience and takings. I have no doubt that, confronted as we are with all the competition of the BBC, both local and national, we are prospering, and I think that that situation will continue. Perhaps the hon. Member for Derby, North will explain why this is not wanted and why the people of Manchester are not worthy or deserving of this service.

Mr. Whitehead: I said that there was no prior need. I accept that it is possible to create one and to create an audience for a certain type of broadcasting. I am sure that Radio Piccadilly, with which I understand the hon. Gentleman is connected, will do that.

Sir P. Bryan: But what is wrong with that? Presumably people want to listen to it. For some unknown reason, the hon. Member for Derby, North suggests that it would have been far better not to have started it, in which case people would never have known that they could enjoy it. Apparently, he takes the view that now that it has arrived it has to be tolerated.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that those of us employed in the communications industry put forward a different argument? It is not that these services should not be provided, because they are provided already in some other form. It is that those of us who want to see communications develop would like some examination made of whether this is the right course to adopt, bearing in mind that if resources are moved into this kind of programme we may deprive another section of the communications industry which needs them more.

Sir P. Bryan: I should be happy to see all the examination that anyone wanted.

However, I feel that we have seen a modest start and that local radio is a good start to have made. I wish it well.
As far as it is possible to do so on the basis of only three months, I estimate that local radio will be a success and that more and more stations will find it possible to become viable. But I should like the Minister of State to give us some sort of guidance ahead about the ideas of his party. I say this for a strictly commercial reason. At the moment, the advertising revenue of local stations is about 50 per cent. local and 50 per cent. national. The extent to which national advertising increases depends very much on whether the advertising industry regards local radio as a growing medium which is likely to become a national one or whether it will stay where it is. Given its present size, it is unlikely that the national advertisers will concentrate on it any more than they do now.
An assurance from the Minister that the present numbers will stay as they are and certainly will not be cut down will be a help. An assurance that the full programme is to continue clearly will help not just single stations but all the stations which are on the air. The general reputation of local radio is important to each station, because that general reputation affects their individual reputations.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. Julian Critchley: Immediately after the General Election result was announced in February, I fled to the United States on a lecture tour. It was only after I had spoken on a number of occasions that the size of my audience was explained to me. It was widely believed that I was there to sponsor "Upstairs Downstairs", and a blue-haired widow in Atlanta, who clearly had disposed of three husbands, said that I reminded her of Mr. Bellamy. I could only reply that my home life was far closer to that of Hudson.
The point is that everyone in America thought that "Upstairs Downstairs was a programme produced by the BBC. It is curious how the high level of programmes which ITV has achieved for many years is in part disregarded overseas. ITV news is probably rather better than BBC news. ITV drama series are as good, if not better. In sport, there is little to choose between the two. But


it is about time that someone said something nice about ITV, especially about Sir Lew Grade.
I think that Sir Lew is the only Englishman who has given the British what they want. The British have always been deprived, either by Lord Reith, or by this House, or by other busybodies. At least Lew Grade has provided people with the sort of entertainment that they want and deserve.
I welcome the resurrection of Lord Annan, if only in the sense that Lazarus happens to owe me money. There is no industry about which more is known, and less is done, than the subject on which this debate is focused. We are always pulling it up by the roots to see what the matter with it is, but it is rare that anyone makes a decision about it.
Before the General Election, some of us hoped that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) had already secretly made up his mind to give the fourth channel to ITV. I understand that he spent anxious hours outside the Cabinet room where his colleagues were busily discussing other subjects, waiting—and I hope reading the novels of Hardy—to persuade the Cabinet to consider this eventuality. Unfortunately the fourth channel was yet another victim of the February General Election.
Why are the Government so coy about recruiting the members of the Annan Committee? Is it that Sir Alf Ramsey is still playing for England, that Miss Anona Winn has not enough programmes on which to appear, or that Mr. Digby Jacks has bigger fish to fry? It is curious that we should wait so long for these predictable people who, sooner or later, will make up the composition of the Annan Committee.
What are the choices before the Annan Committee when eventually it comes to discuss the possibility of the fourth channel? Let us think about it. A fourth channel for the British people when they spend far too much time watching television anyway is a monstrous suggestion! I am surprised that hon. Members could seriously put it forward. The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) knows that the smallest American city has between 15 and 30 channels—all

showing identical programmes—but there is a case to be made that it is time that the poor British were allowed a fourth channel.

Mr. Whitehead: It will presumably penetrate the hon. Gentleman's burlesque that that is what we call a waste of resources.

Mr. Critchley: I noticed with great interest that before the hon. Gentleman made his speech he ranged before him six obscure magazines, each of which contained an article by him, each less readable than the other.
There will be roughly five choices—I do not know about the hon. Member for Derby, North, but presumably before I have finished my speech he will be proposing a sixth choice—before the Annan Committee when it discusses the possibility of a fourth channel.
The first is the Open University, which is an educational service. The second is ITV and the existing companies. The third is ITV and a new set of companies. The fourth is a national television foundation conceived by Mr. Anthony Smith. The fifth is "Access" Television. A channel devoted entirely to the views of Mrs. Whitehouse and Mr. Alan Sapper would get the audience that it deserved. I do not think that at the moment anyone is advocating Access Television.
As for a national television foundation, the question is: who will pay? Unfortunately, or fortunately, all the foundations which have any money are in the United States of America. Whether Mr. Smith could persuade the Ford Foundation to meet the bill I do not know. Few English foundations would be prepared to meet the cost. So, were it ever set up, sooner or later the Government would have to pay. I can see the force of the argument that some programmes conceived and produced by a national television foundation might appear on one or other of the channels, but I see no argument for allowing all the producers in Christendom to get together to do their own thing at public expense. The idea of a television channel devoted entirely to "experimental" television makes the mind absolutely boggle.
I turn now to the Open University, the pride and joy of The Guardian. If the


Open University has had some success—if—it has not been because some dens occasionally appear on the box. If there is an argument for more television for the Open University, there are the mornings and early afternoons on both channels. In five, six or seven years there may be other channels on 405, and they can take the lot. However, the success of the Open University has not been dependent on the fact that some lectures are shown on television. It is a curious allocation of resources to be told that one out of four programmes shown on television should be devoted to permitting housewives to obtain academic qualifications.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Critchley: I thought that would encourage the hon. Lady.

Mrs. Dunwoody: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is unaware that he is giving the impression that housewives are the last people to be given education. But he is being thoroughly unfair to a successful form of television which is providing stimulus and excitement and is widening the horizons of vast numbers of working-class and middle-class people who did not have opportunities for university education. I realise that he finds this situation amusing. However, I hope that he will not allow the impression to remain on the record that this is not an exceedingly good service which ought to be developed in the interests of this country.

Mr. Critchley: It is dangerous to make jokes in the House of Commons, and it is extremely dangerous to make jokes about housewives. I apologise to the hon. Lady who clearly is prepared to take me more seriously than I am prepared to take myself. However, we need cheering up.
Another choice is that ITV should be given a whole set of new companies, and that the new companies should have the fourth channel in competition with the existing companies. The only argument for this is that it might conceivably make advertising rates cheaper. But it would do so at the expense of the programmes. There is little or no support outside the advertising industry for the

solution of ITV with a new set of companies for the fourth channel.
Here I come to my American example. It is because in America all the channels compete one against another for the ratings that they get the broad similarity of programmes that those of us who visit the United States get so bored with in our hotel bedrooms.
The solution that I finally put forward is that ITV be allowed the fourth channel with the existing companies being allowed to make use of it so that the relationship between ITV 1 and this second channel would be similar to the relationship between BBC 1 and BBC 2. In that way we reach a reasonable solution in which more access is available for programmes and a balance is struck between the programmes that will go out on ITV 1 and ITV 2 in the same way as on BBC 1 and BBC 2. A second service on those lines is the only way for ITV to overcome its dilemma: to what extent should minority tastes be allowed scope at the expense of majority interests?
What is said about ITV is that many of its more interesting academically-oriented programmes appear at midnight. That is because it does not have a second channel on which these programmes can be mixed.
Members of Parliament never watch the box; they only appear on it. Indeed, many of us will tell the public that we would not allow any more television either because we fear it, or because we profoundly dislike it. Politicians of all parties have had cause to complain about the box in the past. Most of the complaints have been directed against the BBC, not ITV. The complaints that politicians have made against the BBC are due to the fact that it has always exaggerated the degree of interest that the British people take in politics, and have therefore received, as it were, anxieties and the complaints that it has stimulated. There are good arguments on all sides for the ITV approach to politics, which is slightly less frenetic than that of the BBC.
There are those who dislike television. I sum them up as "Hailsham 1955". At that time Lord Hailsham, if he had a television set at all, had it upstairs where


the maids could watch it. That is one attitude.
A second attitude concerns those who fear television. I sum up that particular attitude as "Soref 1970".
There is a third attitude—those who argue all the time for delay, for doing nothing, so as to prevent ITV having the fourth channel—which I sum up as "Whitehead 1974."

6.19 p.m.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am delighted to have the opportunity of following in the debate the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley). It will come as no shock to him to learn that I disagree with practically everything he said. However, I must thank him, because the picture he drew of his right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) sitting weeping in the corridor outside the Cabinet room giving a famous impersonation of Cinderella not only touched my heart deeply but frightened me rather badly. It proved conclusively that it was a good thing that we had the election at that time if there was any suggestion that the fourth channel should be handed to ITV as a second channel.
One of the aspects of all our discussions in this House that worries me most is that we have a number of debates but they are always about an isolated aspect of the communications industry. It is not true that we are always taking up the plant to see whether the roots are alive. We have debates in which some of the independent television companies have their views widely expressed. Some of my hon. Friends talk at very great and useful length about the social implications of communications, but we rarely look at the whole problem. It seems to me that this will be one of the difficulties with the extra three years of the Annan Committee's examination.
I should like to see the allocation of a fourth channel on television, and in this I suspect I am rather a lone voice in my party, because I believe that there is an argument for making it very much a mixed service. One of the arguments is that services like the Open University would have a much greater impact in the world as a whole if they were provided by wholly professional services. Alan Sapper's views are not always my own

but the expertise represented by members of ACTT, the Writers' Guild and other unions in the entertainment industry is such that it ought to be employed in producing programmes of the kind we could have in a mixed fourth channel.
Some of the arguments put forward on the basis of advertising as a means of funding the fourth channel seem to me to be rather spurious. The funding of a fourth channel is one of the most important aspects that we have to examine. I do not believe we can continually expect services like the BBC. or for that matter ITV, using only their existing sources of finance to keep up their standard. Before long they will find themselves in an extraordinarily difficult situation as costs rise.
The BBC is producing more and more programmes commercially and a great deal of money is already going into programmes being produced with companies like Warner Brothers. It needs to expand its overseas sales. Through MIBTV and other trade fairs it sells a great many programmes abroad—and it needs to do so, because it is finding it increasingly difficult to keep up the same standard and quality of programmes in a world in which inflation appears to be roaring ahead. Therefore, any decisions taken on broadcasting must take account of the fact that funding will be one of the most fundamental questions that the Government have to answer.
It is too simple to say simply that by constantly raising licence fees or constantly attracting advertising from other sources we shall be able to provide the increased hours of television broadcasting that many people want. The hon. Member for Aldershot said that most Members of Parliament only appeared on the "box" and that they did not look at it. I actually look at it and thoroughly enjoy doing so.
There is one difficulty that we shall encounter. In all our examination nobody is yet beginning to talk about the fact that in three years' time there will be an absolute explosion in videotape recording in this country. We shall be dealing not with straightforward programming but with a situation in which anybody can go into a chain store and buy a casette and then use it in a video-


tape recorder which it will have been possible to rent from a commercial company. People are already talking of being able to do this at a reasonable price, and this is something we should be considering in very great detail.
For example, the cable television companies must face up to whether or not they should continue to experiment. It is costing them a great deal of money. I believe they are doing it because they expect an even greater return in the future. This is a perfectly normal, straightforward, commercial operation. But if these companies are to originate material, they will have to consider the cost, not only to themselves but also to the community as a whole. There are spin-off developments with cable television whereby, for instance, a person who is old and in need of assistance can put a signal through his own television set to a central point and someone can then come to his assistance. These things will be of tremendous advantage if they are properly developed, but they will come only if resources are put into the right kind of experiment.
I find myself in frequent disagreement with the cable television association, which I believe does not always make the right commercial arguments for itself and does not really go as deeply into the possibilities for the channel as I should like it to do.
I must declare another interest. The film industry believes that we are providing a great deal of material. I was pleased that one of my members should have had such a warm tribute raid to him because those who work in the industry are very proud of Sir Lew and do not need to be told how frequently he does an extraordinarily good job. The reason why he is able to pour out the amount of money he puts into programmes is that he always thinks of the international market and of the need to make glossy, high-quality programmes to appeal to the American and other markets as well as our own.
When the Annan Committee discusses the implications of broadcasting, it will have to learn to fit the whole problem of programming and providing something like a fourth television channel into the question of where our resources should be applied. As a Socialist I believe that

if we have a limited amount of money at Treasury level, drawn from taxes, it must be spent in the correct way; and am not sure that putting more resources from the taxpayer into communications would be even beginning to answer the problems we shall see in the future. We are in effect saying to my hon. Friend the Minister "Let us get on with Annan. Let it be appointed as quickly as possible, but may we have on that committee people who are actually involved in the sordid matter of day-to-day commercialism as well as those who represent the housewives? "—of whom we have heard so much today.
Simply because this is an industry which affects more people than any other in this country, it is not enough to let it deteriorate into moving wallpaper. That will happen if we do not begin seriously to consider the implications. I want to see an allocation of resources to services like the Open University and an extension of public authority broadcasting, but I also want to see the right commercial mix so that private as well as public money goes in. When the applications for the independent television companies' contracts come up again, the House will have to take some interest in how those contracts are allocated, and not simply on social and political grounds but on grounds of expertise.
When the allocation of commercial radio contracts took place, I was appalled at the very definite view I formed that the use of a well-known name of an actor or director in many cases had far greater weight than applications by people who had been brought up in the industry and who were themselves young, in many cases with a greater degree of expertise but who had not the backing of titled people and the public relations front that others had.
I was trained by one of the best news services anywhere in the radio world, by Radio Nederland in Holland. It was proved conclusively to me that the job that can be done by radio in the news service field is of tremendous importance, but I do not believe that it will be done on the basis of haphazard applications decided upon for the wrong reasons without the degree of backing that is needed in these circumstances. We are really saying to my hon. Friend "We are watching because we believe very strongly not that commercialism is the


only answer, not that this question can be left happily for another five years, but because communications in this country will change so radically in the next two and a half years that we may be talking about a totally different Bill within a very short time." We say that all these examinations must have an overall involvement with every section of the community. That does not mean only powerful commercial interests. It means all those of us who work in the industry every day.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. George Reid: I am a broadcaster by trade, having worked both north and south of the border in network and regional television as a presenter and producer. I am worried about the extension of the IBA licence for another three years, primarily because of the effects on broadcasting, Scottish broadcasting in particular.
Like the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) I am particularly anxious lest a three-year extension should simply mean that the sitting tenants—the programme contractors—should be lightly examined and then allowed to continue in business for a further three years. That situation could be severe for Scotland where, as hon. Members will know, the current independent television contractors are divided into two-and-a-half companies—Scottish Television in Glasgow, Grampian Television in Aberdeen and half of Border Television serving the North from Carlisle.
We in Scotland have to think carefully about a further three years for the IBA. Hon. Members will be aware that there could be a considerable devolution of power within the United Kingdom over that period, certainly before 1979. I refer to devolution of power from this Parliament to an assembly in Edinburgh. This should clearly be paralleled by the devolution of broadcasting power.
If there is to be the break-up of the United Kingdom, as some members of my party want, there would have correspondingly to be the break-up of broadcasting unity within the United Kingdom. Hon. Members will be aware that some of the Kilbrandon Commissioners gave serious consideration to the point that broadcasting would be a function devolved to a Scots Assembly.
One of the saddest things about the IBA control of broadcasting at present is that Scotland is considered to be a "region". The regional approach has been a proud boast of the IBA. Yet Scotland, which is a nation, has no direct right of entry to independent broadcasting as have, for example, Yorkshire, Granadaland, the Midlands and London. That has had serious effects for Scots broadcasting.
Broadcasting is seriously centralised. Decision-making for the IBA is to a large extent controlled from London. There is a small Scots sub-committee. Network planning of programmes is organised by the Network Planning Committee, on which only the big companies are represented. There is no separate voice on that committee for Scotland or Wales. This leaves the broadcaster in Scotland in something of a television backyard. He has neither the money, the facilities nor the time of his colleagues in the networking companies down south. To a large extent that means that he has not got the opportunities to produce the same quality of programmes.
This means too that the Scots cannot obtain ready access to the English television market. The Englishman sitting in London has no real awareness of many of the things going on in Scots life at the moment. I instance oil. If oil had been found in the English Channel we would no doubt have had immediate coverage of every small detail of every discovery regularly on television. As it is, we occasionally have a major English networking company going north of the border and "interpreting" the situation to the people of Scotland and England. Ultimately we in Scotland will want our own Scottish Broadcasting Authority. I point out that such an authority may well he with us before 1979.
I said that I worked both as a broadcasting producer and as a performer. One of the sad things about the current, rather centralised, broadcasting system within the United Kingdom is that many of the excellent working-class activities available as television subjects in Scotland have not "made" the network. We have had a series of London-based programmes which make London life, English life, seem glamorous; programmes which push English mores. We in Scotland have our own distinct character, our own ideals


and ambitions, but these do not get regular coverage on the "box".
When it comes to television programmes from Scotland being sent south down the pipe, the inevitable request to the Scots programme controller is for more haggis, more kilts, more bagpipes and not for those programmes which could reflect the genuine working-class identity of people in the central belt of Scotland. That is sad. Even on those occasions when there are major events in Scotland, for example golf at St. Andrews, that is controlled directly by ITV Sport and the Scottish producers are left a secondary rôle.
I remind Labour Members that while coverage was given to a very curious decision a week and a half ago—on a day when only 11 members out of the 29 members of the Scottish Labour Party Executive turned up to take a decision on devolution in Scotland—there was no coverage on Scottish television or television in England of a march to Bannockburn at the same time of 10,000 members of the Scottish National Party.
The point is that if 10.000 people marched on a Saturday through the streets of London, that would be given coverage somewhere in the running order of an English television bulletin. If 10.000 people had marched through the streets of Belfast, it would probably have been the lead story. There was no coverage whatever, in Scotland or down south. To this extent the British public are being denied access to what is happening in Scotland.
The same is true to an extent of political broadcasting within this House. The IBA, through its agent ITN, has nominated one man, a good hard-working man, as regional correspondent for ITV News. How can one man possibly cover stories ranging from the clay industry in Cornwall and the Geordies on Tyneside to the Liverpool docker and at the same time be expected to have a working knowledge of what goes on in the Scottish Grand Committee or in the Highlands?
How does he have time to know what is relevant to the crofters of Scotland, the fishermen and the oil men? It is an impossible brief. Yet on several occasions both ITV companies in Scotland

have made approaches with a view to getting their own Lobby man in the House.

Mr. Critchley: May I ask what has been the result of those approaches?

Mr. Reid: The result, to my knowledge, was that no place was currently available. Approaches were originally made which have resulted, to my knowledge, in the appointment of a regional correspondent. That is my information. Because Scots law is different, the Scottish Church is different and the administration is different, there is obviously a case for having separate coverage of Scottish politics.
If we look at a current ITV map of Scotland we see that almost half of the geographical area of the country is white. That means that no signals are getting in. I appreciate that there is only a small percentage of the Scottish population there. However, the IBA has not been quite so concerned about small rural communities in Scotland in times past, or about the Gaelic language, as have its confreres at the BBC.
Given devolution in Scotland, we shall clearly have a new focal point of national identity, a new centre of decision-making within our own country. That should be paralleled with the new focal point of television identity and television decision-making within Scotland. It is not for me to decide what model the Scottish broadcasting authority would be. That is for the members of a future Scottish House. There are two points which arise.
First, I concede the point that the population base of Scotland is small. It may be difficult in a country of 51 million people to generate the revenue needed to maintain a wide television service of three or four channels. There would therefore have to be some restructuring of existing broadcasting authorities within Scotland.
It is possible that within Scotland we may have to run together the existing BBC and ITV companies by slotting them into one. We may go back to some Reithian system. We may in Scotland choose to have a Home, Light and Third. That would be our privilege as Scots—within this shared island—to be different, and it is the whole point about devolution in the first place. If Norway can do it, if Iceland can do it, if Eire can do it


through Telefis Eireann, clearly we in Scotland can do it as well.
I want broadcasting returned to the remit of a Scots Parliament. I hope to see some form of assembly established before this licence runs out in 1979. In the meantime I suggest that there may well be a case for pressing the IBA for network status for the present Scottish broadcasting contractors so that. at an important time in Scots history, at a time when the economy of the United Kingdom has shifted northwards, they can have access to the existing network as contractors. I know the reluctance of hon. Members to intervene in broadcasting affairs. Presumably that is because they respect the integrity of the journalists and their right to "comment".
Too often in our past we in Scotland have missed our television place in the world because Members have been denied the facts of broadcasting life in Scotland. As both a broadcaster and a Member of Parliament, I am not satisfied with the IBA. I want to see a Scottish broadcasting authority. I am sure that within not too many years we shall see not just that but a Scots Parliament too.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: The hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Reid) has expressed something of the new spirit of regionalism, and I shall come to it later when I deal with my own country of Wales.
I welcome the Bill as providing for the continuation of the IBA and its services for five years from now. This is not a long time in broadcasting these days, when plans for production, programming and technical development have to be laid well in advance. As it is now our practice to declare past, present and future interests, I must tell the House that I was professionally engaged in ITV in Wales and the West Country from 1957 to 1969 and that I am still interested in the service, although not financially. I was also but am no longer a director of a company which may apply for the Cardiff commercial radio franchise when it becomes available.
I do not pretend that ITV is perfect. I know its imperfections as well as, if not better than, anyone. On the whole, however, it provides a good service and we must not forget that the majority of

people in this country would feel very deprived if they were to lose it.
Clearly the Labour Party does not believe in leaving well alone. Many people were alarmed last month to read of the report prepared for the Labour Party's National Executive by a working party chaired by the Secretary of State for Industry and later, according to newspaper reports, by the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman).
Basically the report proposed a national broadcasting commission—again, I rely on Press reports—which would be responsible for the financing of both the BBC and ITV. In other words, ITV contractors would simply he programme producers and their profits would be creamed off to give additional support to the BBC services or to finance new services. We are talking now not about excessive profits which can be creamed off under the present system but about profits as such.
The hon. Member for Basildon was quoted in The Guardian on 17th April as saying:
I believe talks can begin with the industry even before the Annan Committee reports to show the television people that we know that we are talking about and that we are not in any sense opposed to them.
The Guardian went on to say that the hon. Member thought that the central plan for the collection and distribution of advertising revenue could go into operation within a year.
It is on that statement that it would be in order, I believe, to refer to the working party's document.

Mr. Lyon: The hon. Member has already been told by a member of the committee that that report will have the status of evidence to be submitted to the Annan Committee; it will have no higher status than that. I do not want to disrupt his speech if he has prepared it, but is there any point in going on with it since the Annan Committee will have to consider that evidence just as it will have to consider all the other evidence?

Mr. Roberts: Whatever observations I make upon this document may also be evidence for the Annan Committee.
If changes can be made in the financing of ITV before the end of the present period—there is no reason why there should not be changes, since we have


already heard from the Government that they are prepared to take the Crawford Committee recommendations into account and possibly act upon them before the Annan Committee reports—this will raise the question of why the Annan Committee has been set up in the first place.
We have heard about the difficulties of nominating that committee's membership but the reason for its creation mystifies me, as it has mystified Labour Members. If the intention is that the Annan Committee should simply set its seal of approval on the Labour Party's plan to concentrate financial control of the media, that is surely a gross misuse of such a committee. We can only hope that the public are already alerted about what is afoot. I suspect that we are about to see a massive anti-commercial television and radio exercise, all part of the nationalisation programme so beloved of the Secretary of State for Industry.
The essence of the scheme for ITV is to eliminate the profit motive, but I wonder whether Labour Members fully realise the extent to which the quality of the ITV service depends on the profit motive. It is the profit motive that inspires the keen competition in programming with the BBC. Although we may criticise this competition at its worst, we must agree that at its best it has been an excellent stimulus to both services and has ensured a first-class choice of programmes for the viewer.
Labour Members have also misunderstood the function of the profit motive in securing advertising revenue. From the reports I have seen of this document, one would think that advertising revenue grew on trees—

Mr. Whitehead: The hon. Member has not even read it.

Mr. Roberts: If one removes the profit motive, one kicks away one of the major props of popular programming. If there is something wrong with popular programming as such, let Labour Members come out and say it.
It is remarkable that we should be debating the future of ITV on the same day as it is reported that there has been a major shake-up in the French television and radio service, ORTF. I understand from today's Financial Times that the

French President and some members of his Cabinet wanted to break up their troublesome State monopoly and create a commercial channel to provide competition. But they were opposed by an unholy alliance among the Gaullist UDR Party, the Socialists, the Communists and the trade unions. Therefore, all that the President has been able to do is to create seven independent regional services in competition with one another but all under State control and financed by licence fees. The French are desperately trying to get away from monopoly, while the Labour Party is trying to strengthen monopoly in this country.
There are far more interesting possibilities in television and radio than those which appear to have occupied the minds of the Labour Party. What we want in the media is more diversity, not more centralised control. There is much to be said for regionalism, and we have heard a Scottish view of it. I expect that the Crawford Committee will have something to say on that. I am particularly interested in a Welsh language service, which can, of course, be entirely financed by the IBA. I was glad to have the assurance from the Minister of State that if the Crawford Committee reports in favour of such a service for Wales, the Government will not put off their decision until the Annan Committee reports.
Then there are possibilities of community and group television. With the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) I attended a symposium on broadcasting in Munich last week. Clearly this kind of community and group broadcasting interests many Europeans as a possibility for the future. We have already established local radio, both BBC and commercial. There have been interesting experiments on television in this country—at Swindon and Greenwich, for example—and there is immense potential for social good in these experiments.
Local television can create a sense of community where there was little or none before. It can stimulate such a sense of community where it is fading due to the onslaught of the national networks with their common factor culture. I am not averse to group media concepts and timesharing between Methodists and Marxists, and so on. The vast passive audiences must be encouraged to activate themselves, to participate in the media and


perhaps regenerate the media and themselves. We must try to give the people what they have not dreamed of, not just simply what we think they want or ought to have.
I think that people are prepared to pay for any television service which is really worth having. I believe that the ITV system, with its inbuilt tension between the programme contractors and the authority, is a good one. The BBC worries me very much at times because it is always on the defensive against the outside world. It is like the medieval church and the Holy Roman Empire—Imperium in imperio, a State within a State.
There is something to be said for the view propounded by Anthony Smith, the former editor of "24 Hours", that producers ought to be made directly accountable for their programmes just as newspaper editors are accountable publicly and at law, otherwise frustrations build up, with resentments against the system in which they are operating, be it the BBC or the IBA.
I would advise the Government to think in these terms of diversifying and providing a greater variety of programme services rather than in terms of the tighter, more centralised control of the existing services. I would also advise them to leave well alone—namely and basically, the existing BBC and ITV services. We have enough problems with the new services, with cable television and all its potentialities, with cassettes and so on. This area of potential television is as yet only a subject of experiment and exploration. The Government should leave what is working well alone and concentrate on this undecided area of television and radio.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. A. J. Beith: There has been no disposition in the debate to challenge the Government's right or responsibility to bring forward such a Bill at this time. There has been no general opposition to it. There has, however, been an indication of disquiet at the absence of a statement by the Government about their policy. We should not be in the position of being presented with a Bill to extend the powers of the IBA for a further period without having an indication of the Government's policy towards commercial radio.
A number of opinions have been expressed from different points of view. This makes it clear how great is the need for some indication of Government policy. There are those who think that the Government are quietly strangling commercial radio, a view which I do not share. The IBA is continuing to implement, though perhaps more slowly than it intended, the policy of the Conservative Government and not that of the present Government, who have not yet indicated whether they have a policy of their own or are simply allowing a slower pace of Conservative policy to continue.
Now that this Bill extends the power of the IBA, we cannot wait for Annan or for Crawford to do the Government's job for them and indicate the Government's policy. I make my plea not out of prejudice against commercial radio but because an issue of resources is involved. There have been references to the desire among Labour Members that public resources and generally increased financial resources should be spread out in ways which do not augur well for the future of broadcasting. One scarce resource which I could mention, however, is frequencies—the air waves—and the ability to use a commodity which is scarce internationally and is the subject of international agreement, which restricts the policy of the Government and of the broadcasting authorities to produce varying programmes. That scarce resource is being spent by the IBA. Perhaps the Government think that it is being spent in the proper way, but they have given no indication of what they think.
The significance of the continued handing-out of commercial contracts comes in the form of duplication and deprivation. It means duplication because in centre after centre we have created not only BBC local radio stations but also local commercial radio stations, while at the same time there usually exists along with them the vestigial regional service, which is not now operating throughout the whole country but continues to be provided in some centres.
In areas like London, for example, we have a multiplicity of local radio stations. Tyneside, Teesside and Clyde-side and other centres will be having at least two local radio stations plus the basic regional service on VHF. It is


clear that the commercial companies are aiming for areas where they will get the best revenue—the cream areas. The result is first duplication and then deprivation—duplication in the cream areas and deprivation for those areas where it is not viable to set up commercial radio stations.
I do not blame the contractors. There is not much advertising revenue in large, scattered rural areas to provide the basis for a commercial radio station. I cannot even argue that there is the basis for a public BBC local radio station. There was the basis for a regional service but probably there is not a case for the provision of the local radio services which successive Governments have wished to provide. But areas like mine have no regional service, no BBC local radio service, certainly no commercial radio service and no prospect of getting any of them.
The Minister of State talked of the need not to prejudice future proposals and recommendations which might be made by the Annan Committee. What is happening on the commercial radio front is clearly prejudicing future decisions on sound broadcasting. It represents decisions to use up frequencies, and in specific instances frequencies have been taken away from the BBC, which was providing limited regional services, and have been given to commercial contractors. This has meant more duplication in populous centres, where the need was not so great because such centres have all kinds of entertainment which a scattered area does not have.
The Minister of State talked about waiting for Annan. I have had experience of waiting for Crawford. I think I must have had more Questions answered than any other hon. Member about waiting for Crawford. I expect that state of affairs to continue for a little while.
It is obvious that we need a clear decision on the commercial radio front if there is to be any hope for those areas for which commercial radio cannot provide. I do not go as far as the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) went in his remarks but I have considerable sympathy with him. I suggest to the Government that the line they must take in the present situation

is this. I do not think they can tolerate the continued granting of franchises to commercial radio companies in areas where the result is duplication. The clear decision which should be made is that commercial radio contracts should be awarded only in those areas which do not have local radio services. There is clearly a strong case for allowing such operations to begin in the areas which are commercially viable and in which there is no alternative radio service. In those cases it is appropriate for contracts to be given.
It is time that the Government made their intentions clear. Far from continuing to pursue the policy of the previous Government, the present Government, who said many things about commercial radio when in opposition, should now indicate some continued belief in what they have said previously by not granting commercial radio contracts on a duplication basis when the use of frequencies causes massive deprivation in many parts of the country and prejudices many broadcasting decisions.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler: I apologise for my brief absence from the debate. Unfortunately I had to take part in a television programme.
The hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Reid), who has left the Chamber, made a good point about the Lobby correspondents system in the House when he mentioned the absence of correspondents operating in the Palace of Westminster representing the Scottish television companies. That is a general criticism. I understand that the television companies have made representations about this matter. I hope that they will make further representations. It seems absolutely ludicrous that major television companies should be excluded from the Lobby under the policy which seems now to be pursued.
Unfortunately it seems that that particular absence reflects all too well the stubborn refusal of the House of Commons to come to terms with television. We have consistently refused over the years to allow the House of Commons to be televised. We have shown no interest in that. Even now, when the tide at last seems to be changing, this matter is not carried forward with any great enthusiasm. Indeed, perhaps the first


point one should make in a debate of this kind is to regret how very little interest is shown in the House of Commons about broadcasting policy. During this debate some familiar faces have been present, but at no stage have there been more than a dozen hon. Members listening to what is taking place.
Politicians are very prone to lecture the broadcasting organisations on how they should behave. We are very quick to criticise faults in their programmes and quick to point out errors of taste which we think they have committed. We are very willing to issue statements—normally at the weekend, and from the comfort of our homes—telling the broadcasting companies what they have omitted or what they should never have put into programmes. When it comes to debates of this kind, however, we are fortunate if more than a dozen hon. Members attend.
Therefore, we should not be altogether surprised if the broadcasting organisations take the view that the interest of Members of Parliament in broadcasting is skin deep and of very little consequence in their reckoning. That is a point which the House should take to heart. It is also a pity, because this has been an interesting debate.
I support the extension of the IBA until 1979. My concern is not that the extension is too long but about whether it is necessary to put this kind of time limit on the extension of the life of the IBA at all. Like some of my hon. Friends I am concerned that the Annan Committee, when it is announced and finally gets down to work, should not interfere with the basic structure of broadcasting organisation in this country, which is a well-tried structure and is serving the public well at present.
I should like briefly to approach the question through the eyes of a journalist. Perhaps I should declare my interest, as a member of the National Union of Journalists who worked for nine years on Fleet Street, and mention in addition that I am also a consultant director of a subsidiary company of an advertising agency. But it is solely the journalistic aspect with which I am concerned.
Journalism is a trade which thrives on competition. Newspapers and, increasingly, broadcasting organisations want not only to get the story first but also to get

the best story. There is no spur like the spur of knowing that a competitor is working on the same subject. Some might say that this can be a spur towards sensationalism, towards making the piece more dramatic than it intrinsically is. Clearly it would be naïve of me to pretend that in journalism this does not happen. More often, however, it is a spur to making a piece of journalism, whether written or television journalism, more thorough than it otherwise would be. There is an incentive for the journalist not to miss a vital point and an incentive to dig into a subject and, perhaps, reveal aspects of it which previously had lain unrevealed and unsuspected.
That is a general point of which not only the Minister but also some of my hon. Friends should take account—the benefits of competition. We have seen the benefits of the competition that we have now in this country. We have seen the benefits again in this journalistic field. "News at Ten", for example, has set a consistently high standard and introduced a new format into television journalism. It was paid the ultimate compliment of having that format followed by the BBC. Indeed, it is not going too far to say that "New at Ten" established for the first time in Britain that there was a serious audience for news and that viewers would stay with a programme not merely for a short while but for 30 minutes or perhaps longer. The previous assumption that the public were content with just a very brief newsreel-type programme was not justified. That was one benefit of competition.
The reverse is also true. BBC programmes such as "Panorama" have set consistently high standards and the independent television companies have sought to challenge these with their own programmes. Therefore, I suggest that the present structure of broadcasting, which provides competition between independent companies and between the BBC and independent companies, has provided benefits and, above all, benefits for the public.
We should also not forget that the IBA is now responsible for commercial radio. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) mentioned this in his very distinguished speech. Those stations are now showing their worth. There was a little criticism


when they were started and there were many teething problems. It would have been remarkable had that not been so. Certainly LBC was trying a news format which had not been attempted in this country. It was pioneering new ground. It is now providing a valuable and thorough news service. Capital Radio, the other London station, has also pioneered new fields. For example, it produces two-hour discussions on particular aspects of policy. These are valuable, and they provide the answer to all of us as politicians who have said that there is never enough time to explore a particular point.
The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) referred to Nottingham and said that commercial radio was about to be introduced there but that there was no particular demand or necessity for it. Perhaps he will allow me, as someone who previously had a connection with Nottingham, to explain that the position there—which is probably not very different from the position in many other provincial cities—is basically that there is one monopoly evening newspaper and one monopoly broadcasting organisation, the BBC. In that kind of situation—I make no criticism of either of those monopolies—a new element of competition has everything to be said for it.
It is right for the Minister to have on record our concern about the Labour Party's plans on the question of competition. We are concerned that the Government will alter the structure of broadcasting and reduce competition, certainly on the national news-gathering front, and we want some assurance that independent commercial radio has a future. There is sufficient indecision and uncertainty for us to press the Government on this matter and to ask, particularly in respect of local radio, for a clear statement of policy. Uncertainty is, unfortunately, all to prevalent and it would be right for it to be removed tonight.
I agree with the points made by the hon. Member for Derby, North on public consultation and participation. I hope that what my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West said will be noted by the Government. He raised the important question of the advisory council of the IBA. I hope that it will not he the Government's policy to wait for Annan on everything that is to take place.

My right hon. Friend's comments about the advisory council touch on a subject on which progress could be made long before Annan is even set up. The advisory council's terms of reference are wide. They are to keep independent television programmes under review, and I suppose that its remit could hardly be wider. It can make comments to the authority and advise the authority on the content and pattern of programmes. That appears to be an exceptionally wide remit. We are indebted to the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries for its report on the effectiveness of the council which led to our debate last year.
The Select Committee raised serious doubts about the effectiveness of the council. The report told us that the council, which has such an enomous remit, met four times a year and that the meetings lasted between two and three hours. The council chairman told the Committee the meetings began at 2 p.m. and continued until about 5 p.m. He was frank enough to admit that attendance lessened as the afternoon drew on and that by 4 p.m. attendance was getting a little sparse. The council has no full-time staff, but it has a secretary who is loaned to the council by the authority. That situation does not seem to me to fit the definition of a public watchdog with any great power or influence.
The chairman told the Select Committee that the council had contemplated making Press statements. One would have thought that there would have been many opportunities since its establishment in 1964 for it to have made Press statements on a range of subjects, but it has made not a single statement.
Therefore, let us not wait for Annan in this respect. Let us see whether we can devise a more effective consumer watchdog and improve the advisory council.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Once more it has been the Conservative Party which in the main has reflected in this House the hopes and fears of the great silent majority on the receiving end of radio and television. We have had the benefit of contributions by my hon. Friends the Members for Howden (Sir P. Bryan), who is deeply immersed in the industry and has had a long interest in it, and for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley),


who has had long experience and who is an articulate writer on the subject, and who refreshed the debate by cutting through a lot of the hocus pocus that surrounds the subject. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts), who has worked in the industry at programme level, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Fowler) who, while a journalist active in other spheres, has strong views about freedom in television. He was kind enough to refer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden) as having made a distinguished speech.
The common theme in all this is that we should not miss opportunities in broadcasting through fear or timidity, and the Government's public face looks somewhat timid, though there seems something sinister behind the scenes. The Minister of State tried to persuade my hon. Friend the Member for Conway not to pursue the question of Press reports on the Transport House document, if that is how I may refer to this mysterious publication. However, it cannot be ignored because there have been extensive reports about it in responsible newspapers. If the Press reports are correct it seems that the men behind the document would scrap the BBC and the IBA and would put in their place a national broadcasting commission, which would rely for programmes on small independent units, financed in a way which is not clear.
I have had many political contacts with the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) over the years. He was chairman of the body which drew up the document. It would be interesting to know what he had in mind. The reports suggested that all advertising revenues—including Press revenues—would be pooled and shared out, possibly by Transport House nominees sitting on some board, presumably to ailing and uneconomic Left-Wing publications, or worse. All this seem dotty to me, but it is, none the less, highly dangerous, and one is tempted to ask why the Bill is based on the date of 1979. Perhaps we are preparing not just for Annan's conclusions but for the Transport House proposals which would fit very neatly into the time scale that has been set out before us in the event of a return of a strong Labour Government. The report has been pro-

duced by the "rolling chairmen", and no doubt their proposals could be steamrollered into effect.
To return to reality, it is true that we live in difficult times and that scarce resources must be wisely used, but there can be no excuse for wasting those resources already committed to broadcasting and for not planning ahead so that, as circumstances improve, the medium is ready to play its part in a better future.
The Government have rightly said that they will endeavour to maintain the level of help which we when in Government gave to the arts. Although, this is for them a retreat from the brave words of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins) before he took office, it is good to know that someone on the Government side of the House is still competing with other interests—sport is much in evidence here—for a modicum of public money for the subsidised arts which could, if they reach them, enrich the lives of millions of people. But there is one major obstacle to public enjoyment of all this, which must be obvious to all hon. Members—lack of communication.
More people could view our national opera through television in less than a week than could hope to get into Covent Garden between now and the end of the century. This is a stark example of our present failure to make the fullest use of television in a sector in which it could do nothing but good. There can be no argument about that. It is probably in this field that postponing indefinitely a fourth television channel is most damaging. There is ample spare capacity and talent in the television industry—I include the whole of television and not what some hon. Members think of as being the industry, the private sector—to fill another channel. The independent side could do a much better job if it had the same facilities on the air as the BBC. My own honorary position in one of the smaller companies has reinforced my view on that.
Both channels—both sectors, so to speak—would be much freer of union problems if there were more room for them in which to overate. Some of the protective attitudes of members of unions—which produce stoppages and even strikes—come as a result of fear of unemployment.
The cost of ITV 2 need not deter the Government from approaching the problem, because the cost would not be immediate. It would build up over a period, and then eventually be self-supporting. It would also have the advantage of getting money into the arts, which the Government might well consider, because there will never be enough money for the arts through straight Government subsidy. The BBC could do better than it does now if some of its Open University and other educational broadcasts were to become the responsibility of ITV 2. The BBC now says that it is stretched to the limit in this regard. Surely ITV should play its part in this—and it could play a much fuller part if it had more space.
The future of the fourth channel is not a choice between handing over another channel to the existing contractors to use entirely as they please or doing nothing. There are a number of options, though a second channel in the hands of ITV, in one form or another, would have considerable advantages.
There has been much reference in the debate to the Annan Committee which has been resuscitated, and the Minister has been teased about the lack of names of members of the Committee. If we are to have the Annan Committee we must have the right people on it, but there seems to be little agreement in the House about who are the right people, except that they should be real people. A particularly valid point made from this side of the House was the hope that if the Annan Committee were to be set up and flourish it would be a great advantage to have on it real people who watch television, people with real families. There would be wide public support for a committee so composed, and I hope that the Government take note of this.
We take the view, despite what the Minister tried to say at the start of the debate, that by resuscitating Annan he is, in effect, putting off all the important decisions for about three years, and decisions, even if made promptly after the Annan Committee reaches its conclusions—that is not likely if the corn-mince is to be taken seriously—could not take effect for perhaps a further two years. It is thanks to the Government's decision that we are in this position and

that there is only the slimmest prospect of increased public enjoyment of television.
The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead)—who is not present at the moment—heralded what he described as another inquiry on top of Annan, which was in his view to be only a prelude to further examination. In this respect the Opposition differ considerably from the Government in that we believe in letting broadcasting get on with the job, and not continually pulling it up and examining it. The hon. Member for Derby. North, who is an influential member of his party, and will, no doubt, be a future occupant of the Front Bench, gave a depressing picture of endless inquiries stretching until the end of the century.
The Minister made a brief opening speech. I do not quarrel with him for being brief, if he can be comprehensive in his reply. He threw out a small sop to the Welsh in the context of the Crawford Committee. We should like to know more about the Minister's attitude on that and many other matters, and there is no shortage of time for him to reply.
The Minister should particularly address himself to the future of the cable television experiments. At present these experiments are being carried out in an altruistic public-spirited manner, but those involved in them cannot be expected to continue with them for ever unless they know what the future is to be.
I hope the Minister will also say something in his reply about standards in broadcasting. Lest he should seek to say that this is no business of his, I shall, while not quoting him at length, refer to a speech he made in the Standing Committee on the Cinematograph and Indecent Displays Bill, on 13th December 1973. It was an excellent speech. The Minister said that he was constantly amazed at the general youth of television producers. He went on to justify that slight slur upon them. I must not digress here, but surely there is no harm in young men having views. The Minister said that as these young men were
controlling an enormously powerful medium such as television, it behoves them to have some concern for the general public disquiet, if that is what it is, about some of their offerings. They cannot simply shrug it off by saying, ' This is censorship and we object to


it.'"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 13th December 1973; c. 305.]
I will not digress over what is censorship and what is not, but the Minister said that people in television could not shrug off their responsibilities, and therefore implied that he also has some responsibility in this connection.
The debate would not be complete without a reference to Mrs. Whitehouse. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot mentioned her. Mrs. Whitehouse may be a figure of fun to some, and by others she is regarded as the personification of the worst aspect of prudish censorship. I am not expressing my personal views here. These things have been said about her, but I believe them to be quite unfair. Her association represents, however imperfectly, the point of view of millions of decent-minded people into whose lives, and into whose children's lives, much which is violent and tasteless would not have entered were it not for television. It is small wonder that there are many who now wish that the box had not become such an intrusive influence in our homes.
The Government, by their attitude in the debate, and by what they are doing in the Bill, and its implications, seem to regard television as a kind of Pandora's box which they wish had never been opened. From the box, as they will know from their classical learning, all manner of evils flew out all over the world. I remind the Government that Hope remained inside when the startled Pandora slammed down the lid.
We have three television channels. Will the Government keep the lid on indefinitely? Three channels cannot produce a balance. Under the present Government television is to drift listlessly along. There is nothing listless in the Opposition's attitude to the subject. As has been seen this afternoon, we believe in steady progress and grafting new branches on to the living system we have evolved, not the tearing up operation already referred to. Nor does the future lie in some of the wilder demolition activities which the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East appears to have been about, and with which perhaps even the hon. Member for Derby, North has been concerned, although we await the publication of the report with interest.
We are left with uncertainty and even alarm among those who make our broadcasting, and the audience is denied a wider and richer choice, while Socialists squabble on, some with the best intentions and some with the worst. The one decision for which this Government can claim a doubtful credit is that the fourth button on the television set in practically every home in the land remains a dud, and will remain so indefinitely.

7.32 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): With the permission of the House, I will reply to what has been an interesting debate, in which there have been a number of thoughtful contributions. The only one that strayed overtly into party political discussion was that of the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Cooke), and I do not propose to pay much attention to that.
The most interesting and amusing speech was that of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley). Unfortunately, he told us not to pay too much attention to him. Nevertheless, many of his criticisms of some of the stereotypes of the arguments that can be adduced in this area constituted a valuable exercise. he hon. Gentleman said that we as politicians appear on the box and never watch it. That may be true of him, but I find myself watching it frequently and very rarely appearing on it. I make no complaint about that. It seems to have dated from the time when I suggested that there should be a law of privacy. Since then I have been a very private person in the view of the television companies.
However, I believe that the lion. Gentleman has a point. We talk endlessly in the House about all the great things television should do, yet for most ordinary people it is a vehicle of entertainment. We neglect that part of it at our peril, but as many hon. Members have suggested today, it is not just a vehicle of entertainment; it is also a vehicle of education, of communication and of understanding.
When the hon. Gentleman suggested that the only choice for the fourth channel that could be accepted, when we had discounted all the others, on his logic, was a second channel for ITV, his argument was the sort that used to be


put forward for the BBC's having a second channel. It is not clear to me that the hopes of the BBC second channel were properly fulfilled, largely because, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, the various channels are competing for audiences and there is a sense in which one must play to the audience, even if one's main requirement is not advertising revenue. That is the major Difficulty about the allocation of a fourth channel.
In closing the debate, I cannot say very much about the allocation. It would be silly to try to do so. The purpose of the Annan Committee is to consider the whole future of broadcasting, of which the allocation of the fourth channel is obviously a pertinent part.
There has been complaint tonight, mainly from the Opposition Front Bench, that the appointment of the committee postpones that important decision still further. The committee was to be in existence when we went out of office in 1970. If the Government that came into office then had maintained the committee, we should now be in a position to legislate on its recommendations. Therefore, when the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Sir J. Eden) complains about delay, he has only himself to blame.
When the right hon. Gentleman complains about delay on the fourth channel, that is the unkindest cut of all, because when he tried to justify not continuing with the Annan Committee in the 1970 Government, one of the arguments was that the Government would look at specific problems and seek specific solutions rather than try to have a comprehensive picture of the future of broadcasting. One of the problems they were to look at was the allocation of the fourth channel, which was never allocated in their four years in power. Therefore, they cannot complain if we take a little time to make the right decision about that and a number of other matters that come within the general realm of broadcasting.
I still cannot understand why 1979 has been thought to have some relevance to the production of a document from Transport House about the future of broadcasting. So far as I am aware, there is nothing in that document that relates to 1979. It could be applied

either in 1979 or in 1981, if in fact it became the Government's policy. But it is not the Government's policy, and the study group recognises that it is not. The group said that it was producing the document for the purpose of presenting it as evidence to the Annan Committee in order that the committee should consider the Labour Party's views and come to a conclusion on them. The document has that status.
I do not prejudge the committee, or what the study group will produce, or what the Government will decide about it in the end. However, I do not think that the present structures of the BBC and the IBA are sacrosanct. I see no reason why we should not look at the whole problem of how those structures emerged and whether they fit the pattern of broadcasting for the future, against a very different background. If the committee and a future Government take the view that we should have one broadcasting authority which channels all the income into its own preserves and then uses it to finance different kinds of broadcasting in different ways, so be it. That seems to me to be an interesting idea that should at any rate be considered.
When hon. Members constantly spurn Lord Reith and welcome a different type of regime at the BBC, why they think it wrong for people to think of overturning the present structure of the BBC and looking to something different, I do not know. I am not suggesting that that is the right way forward. All I am saying is that all options are open, and it is open to the Annan Committee to take whatever view it likes. We hope that in coming to its conclusion it will consider the Labour Party's views as well as other views.
I was asked about a more immediate and pressing problem—the future of commercial sound radio. I should like to be able to announce now what that decision is. I cannot do so, but I do not think that it will be long before the decision is announced. We have considered the matter with some care. A considerable number of alternatives have been aired today. As is well known, there are five areas in which commercial broadcasting has been instituted, contracts are out for another six and two applications have been invited. There could be a total of 13 contracts in existence. We hope to be


able to announce shortly which view we shall take.
The five existing cable television experiments will continue. It is correct that in seeking to continue those experiments some of the companies are in some financial difficulty. There is some merit in looking to ways in which they could be helped, but that, again, is one of the major issues that Annan will have to consider. The committee will have to consider whether cable television is the right way forward and, if so, on what basis it should be financed and administered. We cannot now give any hint as to the way in which that might progress, or as to the way in which it might be possible to help -with finance in the interim before any decision is made as a result of the Annan recommendations. The matter is under consideration. That is as much as I can say tonight.

Sir J. Eden: At the very least will the Minister give further consideration to the suggestion that the basis on which the experiments are being conducted should be widened so as to enable Annan to have the benefit of the practical experience of the operation of a number of different factors which the present restricted licence terms preclude?

Mr. Lyon: That matter is under consideration as a way of assisting not only Annan but everyone else to evaluate cable television. We have not yet determined what we shall do in that area.
I was asked about violence on television and about standards generally. All that I can say is that such matters are for the broadcasting authorities themselves. Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Bournemouth, West said, an immense amount of research is being carried out on the relationship between violence and television. The difficulty is to evaluate what it means. In the end it is not entirely clear whether any further research will give us any greater indication. It is true that both the IBA and the BBC have been concerned about the problem and have issued codes of conduct to the producers about the coverage of violence on television. It is to be hoped that that will have some effect upon programmes.
Regarding other complaints about standards, I can only repeat that part of my speech to which reference has been made.

I did not in that speech suggest that Government should have any kind of oversight of the standards of television. I said precisely the opposite, and I say so again tonight.
It is not for Government to determine the standards of television. Government, just like hon. Members, have the right to set the climate of opinion in which the broadcasting authorities take their decisions about standards of television. I have not the least doubt that the authorities will listen to all that has been said during the debate about standards. I know that they listen closely to what is said publicly about standards by all the various personalities who have been named today and that they are aware of their responsibility. It is ultimately a matter for them. That is the way in which the authorities were established. No doubt that is a matter that might come before the Annan Committee. It may be for the Annan Committee to consider whether any change is necessary, but I suspect that its view in the final analysis will be that, whatever the form of the broadcasting commission or commissions, it should be for the authorities to determine standards.
I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) about the interim period when the contracts for the programme contractors will be extended. The IBA announced—and it is a matter for the authority and not for Government—that it was proposing to extend the existing contracts until 1979. In that sense the contractors could say that they were safe until 1979 and they could, if they wished, sit on their haunches.
My hon. Friend suggested that the IBA should use a goad upon the contractors to ensure that they maintain their standards in the interim. The IBA has statutory powers, even within the lifetime of a contract, to vary or to withdraw a contract. It does not use the power because it is of such a Draconian nature.
Reference has been made to the kind of disruption that occurred when the last contracts were issued. There was fear for two years before the ending of the contracts that people would be out of jobs and that the contractors would not continue. If there were to be regular changes in the structure of the contracts


that uncertainty would persist. The IBA is concerned with the day-to-day working of the contractors. It brings its influence to bear by trying to get them to change their programmes or their decisions.

Mr. Whitehead: This is all very well, but my hon. Friend will recollect that the Select Committee criticised the IBA for not using its powers in an emergency to call in a contract. Will my hon. Friend say whether the IBA will be retaining those powers and whether it will be expected to use them in the event of a television or radio company being at fault in the exercise of its contract or in the event of its own financial failure?

Mr. Lyon: It will retain its powers, and because a statutory duty is placed upon it to have oversight of the contractors it is for the authority to decide whether it will use them. It is not for me to decide that the authority should use its powers. I take the view that it should have much greater oversight of the contractors than perhaps it has exercised in the past. All I was saying is that it has not been so laggardly as has been suggested.
There has been a considerable amount of intervention by the IBA. We have the splendid "News at Ten", which has been praised by some Conservative hon. Members, because the IBA took an active interest in getting the programme started by the programme contractors. The wisdom of doing so is now appreciated. Equally, "Weekend World" continued as long as it did because of the pressure that the IBA put upon the programme contractor to keep it going. That kind of pressure is exerted day in and day out. There is constant communication between the contractors and the IBA. That is the job that we have riven to the IBA. If in the end it is not as good as it should be, it must be remembered that no human institution is perfect.
The IBA has done a considerable amount to improve the standards of programmes on the commercial network. I hope that it will go further because I believe that there is still a long way to go. I hope that it will carry out its duties in the same way until 1979 when the Bill will come to an end.

Question put and agreed to

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY (No. 2) [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to extend from 31st July 1976 to 31st July 1979 the date until which the Independent Broadcasting Authority are to provide television and local sound broadcasting services, it is expedient to authorise—
(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the extension of that date by that Act in the sums so payable under any other Act; and
(2) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any increase attributable to that extension in the sums falling to be so paid under any other Act.—[Mr. Alexander W. Lyon.]

WAYS AND MEANS

INDEPENDENT BROADCASTING AUTHORITY (No. 2)

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to extend from 31st July 1976 to 31st July 1979 the date until which the Independent Broadcasting Authority are to provide television and local sound broadcasting services, it is expedient to authorise the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any increase attributable to the extension of that date by that Act in the sums falling to be so paid under any other Act.—[Mr. Alexander W. Lyon.]

NORTHERN IRELAND (YOUNG PERSONS) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

7.51 p.m.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Roland Moyle): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The object of the Bill is to deal with a serious problem involving the safe custody of young people who have been charged with terrorist offences in Northern Ireland. Provision must be made for them until they can be brought to trial and after trial while they are awaiting sentence.
The participation of young people in Northern Ireland in the disturbances has followed a pattern. Hon. Members will remember, and some will have seen, in the early stage of the civil troubles young people—boys and girls—throwing stones at soldiers and members of the security forces. That behaviour progressed to the stage at which the young people were practised in carrying guns and bombs to members of the terrorist organisations for their use. Subsequently, as the security forces became more effective and some of the older members of the terrorist organisations were rounded up, young people were themselves using those guns and bombs, and they were trained to that end.
While young people became more and more involved in serious aspects of the troubles, the legal controls and institutions available to deal with them remained much as they had been prior to 1968. Juvenile deliquency in Northern Ireland before the start of the troubles was somewhat less than it was in the generality of the United Kingdom. Crimes of violence at that time amongst young people were a rarity.
Under the Children and Young Persons Act (Northern Ireland) 1968, juvenile courts are empowered to deal with all criminal offences, other than murder, involving juveniles under the age of seventeen. Murder can be dealt with only by a higher court on indictment, but juvenile courts may deal with all other indictable offences provided the young person and the prosecution agree. In practice, this means that in the past the vast majority of cases involving juveniles have been dealt with in the lower court.
There, the chief consideration governing court proceedings involving juveniles is the welfare of the young people involved. Bail was granted if at all possible. If for any reason the court considered it undesirable to grant bail, the young person could be remanded in custody to a remand home. The young person could be remanded to a prison if the court certified that he was unruly or depraved to the point at which he was unsuitable for detention in a remand home.
The courts in Northern Ireland have taken the view that in determining whether a young person is unruly or depraved they should not take into account the cur-

rent charge. Thus, a young person charged with murdering or attempting to murder a soldier, for example, would not have that aspect taken into account by the court in deciding whether there were grounds for saying that he was unruly or depraved. He may well have been a person of impeccable conduct up to that point.
As young persons became involved in terrorist offences and were charged for the first time, the courts remanded them to remand homes. When the terrorism began there were no establishments in the Province which functioned exclusively as remand homes. There were four training schools, two for boys and two for girls, two Protestant and two Roman Catholic, which had been developed on similar lines to approved schools in the rest of the United Kingdom. Those schools doubled as remand homes. They were open institutions and were not secure. They provided a range of educational, social and recreational facilities which were mobilised for programmes aimed at rehabilitating young offenders. The staff of the establishments were there primarily to assist with that process of rehabilitation.
In the circumstances, absconsions were inevitable, but before 1968 it did not seem to matter a great deal because the schools were fully supported by the community and absconders were usually quickly and easily recovered, as they had no sanctuary to which to turn. That was the situation which the Diplock Commission found in 1972.
A growing number of young people were being sent to remand homes charged with offences which, if they were proved, would be likely to attract lengthy prison sentences. This put great pressure on the young people concerned to abscond. The terrorist organisations to which the young people had given their allegiance applied pressure on them to abscond and to continue to fight. Parts of the community to which the young person returned were in sympathy with the cause for which he claimed to be fighting and sanctuary was widely available. There was a process of intimidation to ensure that his sanctuary was not revealed.
The Diplock Commission recommended that a secure remand home be set up with the utmost urgency. Plans based on approved school experience in England


were implemented in the form of premises hurriedly acquired for the purpose. The new school at Lisnevin, which I believe several hon. Members have visited, was set up. Apart from its security features, it is unusual in that the management boards of the existing schools agreed to come together to run it jointly on interdenominational lines. That was a wise and intelligent decision and, given the background of the Province, it was a courageous decision which is deserving of the utmost credit by the House.
However, the school at Lisnevin had been open for only 26 days when three boys were taken from it by two adults who, with one of the boys who was given a gun, held the staff at gunpoint and tied them up before making good their escape. As it happened, the alarm system proved to be effective, and the three boys and one of the adults were taken into custody at a road block 20 minutes after the escape was effected. It was only by the greatest good fortune that members of the staff and other boys at the school were not injured or killed during the incident. After the two adults had held up some members of the staff, other members of the staff and boys arrived at the school and were added to the captive party. Tension built up and there were loaded guns. Hon. Members will readily understand the dangerous possibilities of the situation.
I am satisfied that to try to make a remand home secure to the degree that is necessary would make it impossible for it to function as a remand home. Apart from anything else, the staff there believe that they should devote themselves to rehabilitating boys and for them to have to devote a considerable amount of their time to sheer security would remove a large part of the incentive for doing their job from them and would undermine the whole concept of the school.
There are some figures I should like to give the House. Since 1st August 1973, when the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 came into force, 39 boys charged with terrorist or scheduled offences, listed in Schedule 4 of the Act, have absconded a total of 66 times from ordinary remand homes. Of those 66 absconsions, three were charged with murder, two with attempted murder, 21 with

the possession of firearms—it might be in a particularly violent background—two with armed robbery, five with causing explosions, one with intimidation, one with membership of an illegal organisation, one with possesion of illegal documents and three with riotous behaviour. Of the 39 boys who absconded, 13 are still at large. Of that number still at large two have been charged with murder, 10 with the possession of firearms, and one with intimidation.
That sort of situation cannot be allowed to continue. There is a tremendous burden placed on our security forces who very often arrest young terrorists, at great personal risk to their life and limb, who are brought before the courts. Possibly within 24 or 48 hours the young offender is back on the street carrying on the pattern of activities which led to his being seized in the first place.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Would the Minister say what percentage the figure of 39 represents of young persons charged with these offences? Second, how many of these 26 people who then returned were recaptured and charged with subsequent offences committed while they had absconded?

Mr. Moyle: I will ask the House for permission to reply to the debate. I shall endeavour to obtain those figures for my hon. Friend.
In the circumstances which I have been describing, the machinery of justice and the rule of law is obviously brought into disrepute and the lives of the remand home staff are put at risk as I have described in the Lisnevin case. The young absconder's life is put at risk because he attracts again the attention of the security forces. He may, for good or bad reasons, sometimes be regarded by those in the sanctuary to which he escapes as a possible informer against the terrorist organisations, and the results of that are obvious. He may involve himself in further terrorist activities, with the result that he gets killed, not necessarily by the security forces.
For example, one of the young people who escaped from the remand centre took part in an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary at Pomeroy. He endeavoured to prime a grenade, which


blew up in the process, and he was killed. There are a number of dangers.
The Government and Parliament have a moral responsibility, first to the security forces, secondly to the staff of the normal remand homes in Northern Ireland, thirdly to the young persons—we must never regard them as totally beyond recall and must do our best to rehabilitate them—and fourthly to the community at large.
We have considered whether the best course might net be to amend the Children and Young Persons Act to enable the courts to remand to prison when they are satisfied that the gravity of the charge makes it undesirable for the young person to be held in any other establishment. This would have the merits of leaving the matter entirely in the hands of the appropriate court. However, the decision as to where a young terrorist can be most safely held on remand may turn on security considerations and intelligence information of a kind which cannot be adduced before a court, though we are not considering whether somebody should be detained on remand or not. That has already been decided. We are trying to decide the type of detention that the young person should under. The court of law cannot be expected to base its decision on information from sources which cannot be disclosed to it. On balance, therefore, we have decided that the Secretary of State should assume this responsibility as an administrative decision, basically within the terms of the Bill before the House.
The Bill is not long. Clause 1 defines the young person to whom it applies and gives the Secretary of State power to give direction. The definition of "young person" in Clause 1(1) and (2) is that he must be over 14 years of age and under 17. He must be charged with a scheduled—that is, a terrorist—offence under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973. I do not think I need list those offences. Most Members, as a result of their experience with problems in the Province, know precisely what they are. But the Bill does not say that the Secretary of State "must" direct that young persons charged with these offences are to be held in prison rather than a remand home, only that he "may" do so. It is a question of the judgment of the Secretary of State as to the appropriate form of

detention in considering the record and circumstances of the young terrorist. Clause 1(5) allows the direction to be varied or revoked.
Clause 2 is concerned with the duration of the direction. The effect is that if the young person is still on remand in custody or awaiting trial after two months, the direction will have to be reviewed. That means that the original period for the direction is one of two months. If the Secretary of State thinks that it is still needed, he can continue it. If not, it will expire. I should emphasise that the direction does nothing to lengthen or shorten the time that the young person is remanded or awaiting trial. It is concerned only with the place in which he is held, that is, whether he should be held in a security prison rather than in what is in effect an open, non-secure remand home. He will appear regularly before the court at the normal eight-day or fourteen-day intervals until committed.
Clause 3 deals with the direction, expiry and renewal, if necessary, of the Secretary of State's powers under the Bill. This Bill, if it becomes an Act, will be a temporary measure only. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced earlier this year that the Government would have to renew the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 for a further period, and an order giving effect to this has been laid before the House today. This extends the duration of that Act for a further six months until 24th January 1975, which is the same period as that proposed for the young offender provisions. Unless there are further orders extending the Emergency Provisions Act, the young offenders' provisions will fall on 24th January 1975, so we are only asking for a limited period of time in which this may operate.
Clause 3 provides that the orders extending, ending or renewing the Bill shall be subject to the affirmative resolution of this House. That is another safeguard. It is not one of the orders that will carry on unless someone in the House objects to it. It is an order which has to be affirmatively approved by this House before it continues in effect.
There is an urgency procedure for the Young Persons Bill parallel to the simililar provisions in the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, so that if the


Act or some of its provisions were to be discontinued or reintroduced by the emergency procedure, it would be possible to take the same course we are considering this evening.
The House will want to know that the appropriate arrangements have been made for young persons committed on remand in the security prison. That has been uppermost in our minds in considering this legislation. We have arranged for the construction of a new juvenile wing on the ground floor of the hospital building in the Belfast Prison. Juveniles awaiting trial there are completely segregated from other prisoners. It it is not for all practical purposes part of the same establishment. It is to a considerable extent cut off. Special arrangements are made to provide for separate exercise facilities, educational programmes and liberal visiting facilities. Knowing the importance which the House attaches to this accommodation, the Government invited hon. Members from both sides of the House to see these new arrangements. So far as I am aware, they are reasonably satisfied that they are suitable for young people.
The Government devoted much thought to whether this Bill was essential. We would not have introduced it if we had thought it was not essential, but clearly we have come to the conclusion that the existing arrangements for the remanding of young people are not sufficiently secure to deal with the small class of very young people who have been involved in terrorist activities and who after arrest take every conceivable opportunity to get away from the hands of the authorities. We are reluctantly driven to accept the solution which we are proposing in the Bill as the only practicable one to the problem faced by our security forces, the public, and indeed young people themselves, in Northern Ireland at the present time. I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to this modest but necessary measure.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: I wish to begin by congratulating the Minister of State on his appointment to the Northern Ireland Office. It is not a job that everybody would want to have, but I assure him we wish him well. It is agreeable to be able to go on to say that we

accept the case for the Bill and, indeed, the arguments advanced by the Minister a few moments ago.
I noticed that the Irish Times when referring to this legislation had the headline
Bill to Jail Young People Introduced".
Although that is true so far as it goes, it could lead to misapprehensions—unless there is a public awareness of the particularly difficult background which the Minister has described and which has rendered this measure so imperative. I believe that that sort of headline could lead, though I very much hope it will not, to an emotive campaign in certain quarters. We have become familiar with the way in which, by means of propaganda, the best of intentions are given an entirely different appearance. This factor must be borne in mind as we examine the Bill.
One the face of it, sending boys to Crumlin Road Prison, even though they will be segregated from the adults there, might appear to some people to be at variance with our policy elsewhere, particularly our policy in dealing with young people in this country.
Several hon. Members, including myself, recently had the opportunity to examine the situation in Northern Ireland in regard to young people. The visit was made possible by Lord Donaldson. No reasonable person who saw what we saw and who examined the arrangements would argue that the Government of Northern Ireland have an easy choice or, indeed, that they had anything other than the option of choosing this course. Perhaps in the light of our experience there I ought to add a few words to the Minister's remarks and to give my views on the situation.
We begin with the appalling fact that one of the consequences of the last five years has been to draw a considerable number of juveniles not simply into violence, disorder and destruction but into organised murder. Lord Diplock dealt rather graphically with this matter in chapter 9 of his report. which appeared in December 1973 under the heading "Young terrorists." In particular it is worth reminding the public of that paragraph, which read as follows:
The Provisional IRA has frequently used boys aged 14 to 16 to carry out a series of acts of terrorism. Such youths have been


known to shoot with intent to kill and to plant lethal explosives. So long as these are at liberty they are a direct menace to human life.
The Province was totally unprepared to deal with that contingency. The regime has primarily involved training schools, and the tradition of the Catholic schools has insisted on virtually open establishments. This is not simply a matter of tradition. To apply what we would regard as adequate security in these establishments, certainly where they are within Roman Catholic communities, would provoke trouble with the community and also with the staff.
Lord Diplock and his colleagues were appalled by the lack of urgency in providing something more secure at least for "scheduled" offenders, and they made certain recommendations. As I understand the situation—perhaps the Minister will confirm this when he replies—the programme of building which the Diplock Report caused to be put in hand is not likely to result in anything which can be of much use before 1977. In other words, before 1977 we shall not have any establishment other than the places we already have. In view of the obstacles which might be placed in the way of such establishments by the community, even 1977 might be an optimistic date.
We have been sending young terrorists to open training centres from which the rate of absconding has proved indefensibly high. The Minister gave some figures, and I shall give a few figures which do not controvert this. The surprising thing to me is not that the Army is now anxious to take firm measures but that the Army has been patient for so long. It falls to the Army to gather in young terrorists, and we can only imagine the feelings of young soldiers who see at large in the streets youths who not very long ago were found guilty of attempted murder.
My figures show that between December 1973 and May 1974 there were 42 absconders, who between them had absconded 99 times. Some had been rearrested as often as four times and a small proportion are still on the run. Those figures are difficult to argue against, but at this point in my remarks I should like to enter a word of defence in respect of the training centres. Naturally they emerge rather badly from this picture

because they are not adequate for the purpose with which we are now concerned, but it is not their fault that they are being found totally unsuitable for some of the cases which are brought to them.
The failure lies elsewhere, and I hope that in supporting this measure we are not seen indirectly to be undermining the high standing in the Province enjoyed by those establishments. In fact they are striving to maintain the kind of regime which offers the only prospect of rehabilitating some of these boys. Many of the boys come from disrupted homes and often from difficult backgrounds. They have grown up in the wilderness created since 1968 and their future chances are dismayingly small. The problem of rehabilitating some of the boys who now find themselves in training centres is among the most formidable confronting the Province under any dispensation.
I add, because it is relevant to the Bill, that we should be thinking now rather more about how this wider task is to be tackled. Unless we do that, it could undermine all our attempts to restore peace and order in the Province. Some of these boys have been apprenticed to lawlessness. Apart from security establishments, are we thinking about what should be done for their future? Are we thinking about community service, about foster homes and about sponsorship schemes for them? We are dealing here with detention, but it is right to dwell upon the enormous importance of prevention and the fact that it is allied to what we are discussing.
Returning to this measure, I wish to ask the Minister one or two questions. The first concerns the Lisnevin training centre near Newtownards which some of us saw. At the moment it is divided between an assessment section for about 20 boys and a secure unit for 20. Is the secure unit there to be maintained when the arrangements in what I have called the Crumlin Road annexe are in working order? I understand that the Crumlin Road annexe on the hospital floor will take about 17. Do we go on with Lisnevin as it now is?
I ask the question because it is clear that the present role of Lisnevin puts both the place and the staff at some risk. It is a focal point for attack, and it has suffered such an attack. This is bound to


exacerbate the staffing problem there. It seemed to me that the assessment unit was doing important work. It is extremely important that there should be no staffing problems. To what extent will the work being done there go over to Crumlin Road?
I ask the Minister, second, by what criteria will the Secretary of State exercise his discretion in distinguishing, as he will have to do, between the hardened and the adventurous cases? That was the distinction which Lord Diplock made in his report. In a sense, it is the basis for this Bill. It will not be easily implemented. I hope that we shall hear a little more about it.
The third question occurred to me after seeing the ground floor of the hospital block which has been converted for these boys and where they will be kept apart from adult offenders. Let us suppose that in the already overcrowded Crumlin Road Prison there is an epidemic or an outbreak of sickness, which is always possible, and then a call for the full use of the capacity of the hospital block. A problem will arise. There are very few people in the Crumlin Road Prison who can transfer to a hospital which is not secure, and the block has been almost irretrievably converted to the use of the boys. This may seem a detail, but very strange things have happened in the prison and it is always worth looking ahead.
More generally, I hope that before the end of the debate we shall have an assurance from the Government that this measure is seen and accepted as only a small stop-gap measure for a specific purpose, essential though it is, towards a much wider and very serious situation. As Lord Diplock and his colleagues testified at the time, all this has arisen because there was a total failure to look ahead and to provide for future needs. That has to be accepted. It will take a very long time in Northern Ireland, just as it took in this country, to implement any steps now thought out for the future of these young boys. When I say that, I am not talking about detention. I am talking about rehabilitation. It will take a long time to clothe adequately any ideas that the Government of Northern Ireland may have to meet this enormously important problem.
We in this country suffer acutely—probably more in this sphere than in any other—from the fact that in penal matters our administration always lags behind our ideas. We have ideas. We pass Acts of Parliament in this House. Years later we find that we have failed to give administrative backing to the ideas that we have set in motion. That failure in this context could impede our efforts to restore peace and order in the Province. This element will be crucial in the restoration of peace and order.
In giving this measure a fair wind, we have to realise that factor now, and, the Bill apart, we have to act on that realisation.

8.26 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I address myself to begin with to the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). I was struck by the fact that he started his speech by telling us gloomily that this measure was bound to be misinterpreted. He went on to read a headline from the Irish Times saying that this was a "Bill to gaol young people".
I find it strange that the right hon. Gentleman should think it surprising that the Bill should be misinterpreted. All these measures are bound to be misinterpreted. Nothing is more certain. We have reached the situation where whatever my hon. Friend the Minister does, as an Englishman and as a man from Westminster, it will not be right. After five years we have reached the position where the English and the Scots can do nothing right in Ireland. I say to the right hon. Member for Ashford that of course the Bill will be misinterpreted by those who want to misinterpret it.
We have to show a greater curiosity about the background against which we are passing this measure. I was struck by the attitude to this place on going to Ireland. Just after the announcement had been made of our recall for 3rd and 4th June, young people made it clear that they regarded it as a triumph that Parliament had been recalled. "Brought you back", they said; "cut short your holiday". It was not a means to an end. It was an end in itself. Their frame of mind was such that they thought they had established a victory.
Then they said, "We brought Ted Heath back from China early". The


fact that they had done the Leader of the Opposition out of a quite hard three-day fact-finding visit to Hong Kong again was represented as a triumph. Something had been achieved. They had done something to him. They had got something out of their system.
Having mentioned the Leader of the Opposition, I had better mention the Prime Minister. It was a considerable achievement that they had brought an overworked Prime Minister back from his much-deserved holiday in the Scilly Isles in order to debate Ireland, and in order to take notice of them.
Therefore this kind of rational Westminster, Whitehall, Civil Service approach bears little relation to the Ireland that we have now come to know.
I may be asked how I know about it. I have two minor advantages. The first is that I am not an Englishman. I have a Celtic heart, and I understand certain gut reactions. Second, it is perhaps an advantage that, unlike some of my hon. Friends who have sweated away for years on the affairs of Ireland and become terribly internal Irishmen, I come to the problem relatively fresh. It is along these lines that I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister of State on achieving his ministerial post, because he too comes to the matter with a relatively fresh mind. That, in my opinion, is an enormous advantage.
I was a bit dismayed to hear my hon. Friend talk of the "only practicable solution". It may be that this is the only practicable solution as long as a British military presence has responsibility for certain matters in Northern Ireland. But a whole set of different assumptions, which it may be out of order for me to go into tonight, might lead to a different attitude towards a British military presence and involvement and, in consequence, remand institutions.
I am extremely concerned about the next generation in Ulster. I am sure that the House will acquit me of being callous about the matter. I happen to care very much. If I have called for the withdrawal of the British Army at a few clays' notice from a given time—not necessarily now; this may not be the right time—it is not out of callousness and a could-not-care-less attitude about the

Irish but out of a cold reality, as I see it, of what is best.
I should like to be personal for a few moments. In 1961 I was deputy director of studies on the British India ship school "Dunera". In that experience I formed the highest regard for the pupils who came from the North of Ireland. They were extremely well-behaved and their work and attitude were good. One could not find nicer kids anywhere than the kind of intake that the "Dunera" used to take at Bangor.
My hon. Friend pointed out that juvenile delinquency in Northern Ireland before the trouble started was less than anywhere in the United Kingdom. I quite believe that, because the attitude displayed by the kids whom I knew was excellent. I cannot speak highly enough of them. I suspect that Ulster kids are like kids anywhere.
Many of us shudder to think how the next generation will grow up. When such things happen as are happening at a highly impressionable age, what effect do they have on the next generation?
I was struck by the phrase used by the right hon. Member for Ashford that these youngsters were now "apprenticed to lawlessness". That was a marvellous phrase. I have not heard it used before. But that is the situation. It is new in Western Europe.
My other credential for speaking is that I have talked in depth to returning members of the British Army, not only my constituents. Time and again soldiers say "If these were my bairns, what would I do?" There is a feeling among soldiers that these youngsters might be their own but for the grace of God. Not only visiting politicians but the more sensitive members of the British Army are concerned about what is happening to this generation of youngsters. Therefore, there is the greatest cause for concern.
My hon. Friend referred to children throwing stones. We have heard stories of soldiers on sentry duty having water passed on their trousers by ten-year-olds. Much of this kind of behaviour is encouraged and egged on by parents.
This problem goes beyond Northern Ireland. Many people on this side of the water are becoming extremely worried about youngsters, as a result of what they see on the national television news, being


inoculated against violence because it becomes part of their lives. Therefore, from the point of view not only of Northern Ireland but of people on this side of the water, something must he done, and done soon, about the whole atmosphere of violence that is developing.
Are we sure that this is the right road? We are proposing to establish more detention centres. I do not suppose that my hon. Friend has had time yet to visit the women's prison at Armagh, but my visit to that establishment had a traumatic effect which hit me between the eyes. I am not criticising the governor or the staff. I saw girls being shut up in an early-nineteenth century prison in conditions where, again through no fault of the staff, they were all cooped together in little rooms off the main part of the prison with little or nothing to do, other than the cooking and the washing, but laze around.
All I know is that if I were a parent or a visitor I would have a burning sense of resentment about that, and that would be a natural gut reaction. I am under no illusions. Some of those girls may have a bad record and may have helped to burn down a good deal of the city of Belfast. Once one sets up that kind of centre, however, one had better be careful that one does not reap a whirlwind.
Having mentioned Armagh I would like to say—and not only as he is here—how very much I enjoyed a delightful day with the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), who gave up his time to take my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham. East (Mr. Lamond) and me round his constituency. May I say in parenthesis that those who have had the good fortune to go round and see things for themselves may have a very different view from that of a great many people who are laying down what ought to be done about the situation in Northern Ireland without having set foot there.
I wonder how some of my colleagues can be so dogmatic about what happens in Northern Ireland but when I ask gently "Have you ever been there?" they tell me "No". That happens with intelligent people. I have a colleague who often sits on this bench who shall be nameless, an expert on finance and housing and a very careful man who never makes a silly speech, but he pontificated

with an air of certainty on Ireland such as I have about few subjects. What happens to people? It is very strange that people should be so certain about what should be done in Ireland without ever having set foot in the place. This creates a great deal of difficulty.
I have a request to make to my hon. Friend the Minister. I hope that he himself will go there with plenty of time, more time than I had, actually to talk to these young people in the women's prisons in Armagh and Long Kesh. I would also like him to take with him a senior, well-respected director of education or chief education officer from England or Scotland. I would also like taken with him a senior social worker, a heavyweight who is respected. I am neither a professional chief education officer nor a director of social work, but as a former teacher in a comprehensive school I really was appalled to see these girls of from 17 to 18 up to 25 years old, some of them I suspect with a mental age of 14 or 15, who might have been my pupils 15 years ago before the raising of the school leaving age. I would like my hon. Friend to see them all cooped up in these conditions. As a professional educator I cannot imagine that this serves any good purpose for them or the society that put them there.
If I had been a relative or visitor I would have revolted against this and my gut reaction would have been to go and do something to the English. In matters of this kind I regard myself as a fairly relaxed man, but if it had that effect on me what kind of effect does it have in Ireland? I know because I saw some of the people waiting to get into Long Kesh to visit their relatives. What effect does it have when there are mothers with babes in arms who are really angry at what has happened? All this has to be taken into account. I hope that before we make up our minds too much on policy my hon. Friend will go and talk to these people in a relaxed manner, as he would talk as a constituency Member of Parliament, because he might then get a very different view from that which has obtained so far in the Northern Ireland Office.
I wonder too how many civil servants—on the whole I am a very pro-Civil Service person—have actually had this kind of experience. It is one thing being


here or in Whitehall. It is quite another thing to be where the action is taking place.
I do not know too much of the details of what she may or may not have done, but I was struck when I went to the women's prison to hear from Miss Hickey, who was the spokeswoman for the Provisional IRA. The first thing she said—my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East, who is PPS to the Minister of State, was present as a witness—was "Now, of course, if Ian Paisley was Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, that would be all right by us." I may be told to take that with a great pinch of salt. I may be very naive about this, but it is striking that she actually said this.
I hope that my hon. Friend will be curious about what makes these people tick. On the whole people do not do this sort of reckless and destructive thing without some kind of rationale behind it, strange though the rationale may be to us, the inmates of Westminster.
I come to the set-up of the visiting commissioners. This is not the time or place for me to go into a letter which the Secretary of State wrote to me about the case of Miss McKee. It seems exceedingly unsatisfactory that this person should have been held for many months without a formal court order. I know that the commissioners have visited, but this is not quite the point. We have to take into account the sense of grievance that can be exaggerated, inside and outside that place. What worries me about the Bill is that it builds up the sense of grievance that has been growing over the last few years.
The Minister of State says to me "Oh, yes, but it was a Labour Government which sent the troops, with Conservative support, in 1969." I defy any hon. Member to suggest that they would have sent the Army in the role of a peace force to Northern Ireland if they could have foreseen at the time it was done that it would be five long years and more before it could be extricated. As I understood it, when we were in opposition and in government, this was an emergency operation which would last six months or at the most a year. That was the understanding of most of us at that time. It is a different set of circumstances now.
I was much perturbed when I visited Long Kesh. We have there another institution. There are miles of netting. It is on a sizeless scale which most hon. Members simply do not realise. It is entirely to our discredit, and I take as much discredit as anyone, that when we were told about Long Kesh by my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) and St. Pancras, North (Mr. Stallard), for too long we sat here bored, thinking They are on about Ireland again." We should have paid far more attention to them.
Anyone who goes to Long Kesh will be struck by the fact that we are running a prisoner-of-war camp. It is modelled on Stalag 9. Why the English should suppose that their prisoner-of-war camps are any better than anyone else's, I cannot think. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) present—a respected member of the Tribune Group. I wonder what kind of speeches we would have had from Tribune platforms, quite rightly, if at the time of Hola we had been running a place like Long Kesh in some colony.
The movement for colonial freedom would have been eloquent. We would have had my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services on the platform. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Overseas Development would have been there too. How they can ignore this kind of thing absolutely baffles me. In my opinion the Left of the party has gone off its collective nut.

Mr. Bob Cryer: I am listening with interest to my hon. Friend's speech, which is not connected with the Bill but is nevertheless interesting. A visit was made to Northern Ireland by members of the Tribune Group. They spent a long time visiting the place my hon. Friend is talking about. We examined all aspects of Belfast society and northern Ireland society generally. We were particularly determined to do that. We are especially horrified at the policy of internment and its consequences. We recognised that it was short-term expediency, dictated by a situation virtually unknown in any part of the United Kingdom until 1968, certainly within recent history.

Mr. Dalyell: That is an interesting comment, which I accept. But did my


hon. Friends detect the sense of martyrdom which is building up? The only thing to which I take exception is my hon. Friend's remark that what I am saying is not directly relevant to the Bill. He was kind enough to say that I am making an interesting speech. Whether interesting or not, it is extremely relevant. Under the Bill we are setting up another kind of institution which will be misinterpreted in the way that the right hon. Member for Ashford described.
We will again be brought into this morass. The Minister's language itself was suggestive when he talked about sanctuary being widely available. We are dealing with young people who to us may be criminals but who find an element of the heroic in what they do. Once one engenders in young people the idea of daring, of snubbing society and authority, once one gives them the impression that what they are doing is brave, one is in deep trouble when creating this kind of institution.
I am not anti-Army, as the Minister knows. He and I have taken part in possibly 12 annual defence debates. I am in favour of many things connected with the forces, including a good military salary. But we must take into account the reaction of these young people to the soldiers. The feeling is gaining ground—Irish Members will tell me if I am wrong—that the British Army is fair game, however honourable the motives of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw) which sent them there in the first place. They may have been mistaken but they were undoubtedly honourable. Whatever the motives, however, those young people now think of "these awful Anglo-Saxons", and anything we do must be wrong. I think that that includes setting up this kind of institution.
I may be asked whether I have any evidence that things will be different. I can only refer to what the leader of the IRA in Long Kesh Mr. O'Hare, who is well known to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central, said to us. He said that for three generations his family had been in this kind of difficulty, that he had four children, the youngest of whom, who was four years old, he hard hardly seen since he was a

baby, that he did not know his own child and that there were many men in the prison in the same position.
I may be accused by the right hon. Member for Ashford of being simple and naive. All I can report to the House is that Mr. O'Hare and others gave me the impression that if prisoner-of-war status were accorded them as is accorded to most prisoners of war, at the end of the war there would not be a bloodbath. If there is not to be a bloodbath, surely we have to think hard about how we can extricate ourselves or at least reduce our involvement. The critical issue is that of law and order when the whole chemistry of nationalism has advanced because of what we have done.
Therefore I say to the Government that instead of bringing in yet another institution of this kind and going down an inevitable road, on balance of risk, after this Convention and some of the things in the White Paper have been given a chance, they should say "Very well. We have to face it on the critical issue that the Protestant areas will be looked after by Protestants and Catholic areas will be looked after by Catholics.' There may be a dialogue between them—for example there is the conference at Oxford which many hon. Members have been asked to attend. But let the Government take this new departure, take this risk. There is sufficient evidence to give us hope that it might turn out for the better. I ask the Government to recognise the brutal reality that anything we do is counter-productive and that the last thing we should do is to set up more institutions of the kind which the right hon. Member for Ashford said are open to misinterpretation, and which are the children of tonight's Bill.

8.51 p.m.

Captain L. P. S. Orr: I share completely with the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) the deep concern that he has expressed about the future of our younger generation in Ulster. I think that it is tragic and sad—to put it no higher than that—that a Bill of this kind has to be introduced at all. But I do not share his analysis or his cure. We can debate the wider issue next Tuesday when the House discusses the Government's White Paper, so I will not explore the matter further now.
However, I cannot feel that our younger generation at present would be served by the removal of the British Army, because I do not think for one moment that the operations into which these youngsters have been led are aimed specifically against the British Army. They are aimed against the British Army only because it is the British Army which is upholding the civil power. They are aimed at the destruction of whatever civil power might be there. That is the tragedy of the situation.
In considering the Bill, I begin by welcoming the Minister of State to his office. He is in a curious position. Apart from the Bill, the Second Reading of which he has moved, he is not responsible to this House at all. He is supposed to be responsible to an Assembly which is prorogued, but a portion of the Bill will in the meantime make him responsible to this House.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Merlyn Rees): We should get this clear. My hon. Friend is a Minister of State in the Northern Ireland Office, and our responsibilities are for security. My hon. Friend also happens to be Minister for the Environment and Minister of Education in Northern Ireland, but those are very different from his responsibilities, through me, to this House.

Captain Orr: I appreciate that. All I am saying is that the Minister of State is not responsible in the sense that we can question him. We cannot put down Questions to him about matters concerning the environment, for example, which were, by Act of Parliament, devolved upon the Assembly. In other words, we cannot question him about what is his primary job in administration at the present time. We look forward to the time when we shall be able to do so.
On the Bill itself, we accept what the Minister of State has said and also what my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has said—that it appears to be a dire necessity. The concept that young persons should be removed on remand from remand homes or training centres and put into a wing of a prison, however segregated from the rest of the prison it may be, is peculiarly horrifying to anyone who has any civilised

human feelings. But the alternative at present is probably even more horrifying.
That is the problem. The figures for the rate of absconsion that the Minister produced, and the degree of security and the danger to society and the boys themselves, are so horrifying that plainly something must be done about this matter.
What worries me is that the accommodation in the hospital annex of the Crumlin Road Prison is very limited indeed. There are to be four cells, each of three people, making 12 places which, together with a few others, make an absolute maximum of 17 places. In the light of what we may have to expect from now on, that seems to be woefully inadequate provision.
Let us make no mistake. We have all been labouring under an illusion that this is a very short-term measure. The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act will be extended, if we give authority for that on Tuesday, to 24th January 1975. Let no one be under any illusions: it will have to be extended again or will have to be replaced by something that is very like it. Let us be under no illusion that what we are looking at in this Bill is something that will be the law for a very considerable time. The Bill contains very remarkable powers to put into the hands of a Secretary of State. As long as the scheduled offences concept lasts, so long will this Bill last. I hope that the Government are looking at the prospect, whatever he the financial question involved, of a better prison system, even if necessary providing another prison or some other kind of secure establishment.
I dislike the idea of young persons being in an adult prison, however they are segregated. In a way, that is offensive. I hope that there is some forward thinking about that and that the Government are not simply saying that this is a very temporary measure which will do for the time being. I do not believe that it will do. In the interests of humanity and common sense, if nothing else, there ought to be some thinking on those lines.

Mr. Edward Lyons: The Bill is about young persons on remand. Is it not a fact that once convicted for serious offences, both in this country and in Northern Ireland. young persons can be kept in adult prisons?

Captain Orr: Yes, I understand that. But I am saying, first, that we are likely to have more on remand to begin with than it will be possible to contain. I am also saying that I do not like the concept, even in ordinary times, of young people being in adult prisons. When we have this temporary floating problem, we ought to use the time and the opportunity to do something different in Ulster now, because it would be money properly spent.
The Minister refers ail the time to boys, but what is happening about girl prisoners on remand—because there is clear evidence that the Provisional IRA, as well as using young boys, is organising on a fairly big scale the training of young girls? I know that some of my hon. Friends want to speak on the subject and I will therefore not take the matter further.
I hope that the whole concept of what we are about to do in the immediate future, not only about our young persons, but about the problem of Long Kesh and everything else, will be looked at again. We cannot go on like this. We must spend money and be more imaginative. We must break up the great complex of Long Kesh, if nothing else, because Long Kesh is not only a vast security danger but a vast training area. a university or academy of violence, and there ought to be some humane forward-thinking on what should be done.
At the same time we must recognise—and here I disagree with the hon. Member for West Lothian—that the risks are far too great for the course he is at present advocating. There must be a more sensible political situation, a civil power which is broadly acceptable and an adequate degree of security before we can proceed to a measure of that sort.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: My qualifications for speaking in the debate are limited. First, I was one of those who strenuously opposed the introduction of the emergency provisions. I make no apology for that. The debates we had on that Bill have resulted in the emergency powers and the operations of the Diplock procedure being operated as fairly as they are. To that extent, I am sure that our debates were valuable and I do not retract a single word of criticism I made at that stage.
My second qualification is that, like the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), I visited the remand homes in Northern Ireland. I should be the last person to approve of the introduction of a measure which is so offensive to the people of this country. It must he offensive. We would repel the idea of any youngsters accused of offences in this country being sent to prison on remand before they had been convicted. It is alien to the whole legal and penal system of the United Kingdom. It is therefore right that the House should not pass a measure of this sort without proper debate on it.
At the same time, the House should realise that while we are concerned, and should be concerned, about the treatment of young people in this country, we should equally be concerned about how we treat young offenders in Northern Ireland. Indeed, I would go further and say that we should be more concerned, because the pressures on young people in Northern Ireland, the examples given in the areas in which they live, and the whole aura and atmosphere of violence make it that bit more important that when society has to deal with them it should deal with them in the right way.
One thing which impressed me when I visited remand homes in Northern Ireland was the dedication of the staff. It is astonishing to me that, while there are many horrors taking place in Northern Ireland, there are also teachers concerned about rehabilitation. Their concern is basically, as it ought to be, the rehabilitation of youngsters who are what we in this country would term delinquents. The remand homes were built to help carry out this rehabilitation.
Remand homes must be built and must be run in such a way that those in them do not believe that they are in prison and realise that they have a chance of going out into society again. It is wrong that teachers who have been trained and who are dedicated to one end should have to deal with those youngsters who have committed the sort of offences with which the teachers are not qualified to deal.
One reason why we find it offensive that young people should be sent to


prison is that they would fall under the influence of hardened, adult criminals. But, equally, we should be concerned that those other youngsters, who are merely delinquents, or who may be disturbed or deprived, may come into contact with other youngsters who are potential murderers. We should look at this not only from the point of view of youngsters charged with serious terrorist offences, but also from the point of view of those other youngsters who are sent into a remand home from a bad home. That is one reason why I cannot bring myself to oppose this measure.
During my visit to Northern Ireland I talked to some of the youngsters convicted of terrorist offences and who at that time were occupying a hospital wing. It was a remarkable experience. I have spent most of my professional life in the criminals courts and most of the youngsters with whom I have come in contact have been convicted for breaking and entering or taking and driving away cars, or similar offences. But we were talking to youngsters who had been convicted of trying to kill soldiers with bombs, or of ambushing or kidnapping civilian adults, or soldiers—all offences which we in this country would think it impossible that youngsters could get up to, if I may use that neutral phrase. I find it appalling that youngsters like that, who would be hero-worshipped in a remand home, would be able to influence other youngsters.
I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State present, because I know that he is equally concerned about this. As has been said, we should not take this matter lightly. This should be a temporary measure, and nothing more, to meet a situation for which there is no alternative.
One of the sad facts of life is that sometimes something that is meant to be temporary becomes permanent. There is a danger about allowing it to become the norm that administrative decisions can be made by which youngsters are sent to prison. That would be wrong, and a retrograde step.

Mr. Dalyell: Has it not occurred to my hon. Friend, who is an imaginative man, to wonder why youngsters behave, as he says, quite unlike youngsters in

most places? Has he noticed that there is a direct parallel with youngsters in Algeria and Vietnam who behaved like that, and that it is partly a consequence of the presence of armies?

Mr. Davidson: I do not know whether I am imaginative, but I also think that youngsters in Chicago and Nazi Germany behaved like that. That is why we should not isolate Northern Ireland. But interesting as my hon. Friend's speech was—and I mean that—I do not want to go on to more controversial ground, because whenever I speak on Northern Ireland I am misunderstood. Innocent words that I use are dissected and a motive is ascribed to them that I never intended.
I do not think that at present there is any alternative to the Bill, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State must look to the longer term. I am sure that he will not say, "We have not got the money". That would not be the right answer. If there is a problem, it must be dealt with and longer-term facilities must be supplied.
How many youngsters does my tight hon. Friend expect will be sent to Crumlin in any one year? If the facilities there were not in Crumlin, those that I saw would be very good. The teaching facilities were excellent, and there was a most charming teacher by whom I should have been delighted to be taught anything, but at that time there were only three or four youngsters there. If there are more than Crumlin can take in any year, what other facilities does my right hon. Friend have in mind? In what other way will he deal with them?
We should not just say, "Well, they are in Crumlin", because Crumlin is not like any other gaol I have visited. There is something peculiarly horrific and depressing about it. That is not to criticise the staff or the governor, who is very dedicated and very interested. I say it because the adults there are what they are, and because it has to be divided between IRA and UDA and those who have committed other offences. One cannot escape the atmosphere that pervades the place.
It is vital that another institution be built at the earliest opportunity so that the youngsters concerned cannot escape from it but are allowed to escape from what must be a corrupting atmosphere.

9.14 p.m.

Mr. McCusker: I thank the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) for his generous comments not only to me but to the people of Northern Ireland and the teachers in schools there. I also thank the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson) for his generous comments.
Do not let us be surprised when we see normality. As the Secretary of State has told the House many times, there are vast areas of Northern Ireland where normality exists. The vast majority of young people in Northern Ireland are still the young people whom the hon. Member for West Lothian met.
I refer to an incident that took place two years ago following the prorogation of Stormont. I was addressing a large outdoor meeting in Lurgan which was attended by over 2,000 people. About 200 children were standing in front of me. Twelve hours earlier those children had gone on an orgy of destruction down the main street of Lurgan. They had broken every window in every shop in the town. I looked down at the meeting and I saw the children whom I had taught only a short time before looking up at me. They came from decent home backgrounds and they were decent children. I told them that I could in no sense condone what they had done the night before but that I could not condemn them for what they had done.
At the same time I accepted that I had some responsibility for their behaviour. When we consider the level of delinquency prior to 1968 it is clear that this House and Stormont must accept a large degree of responsibility for destroying a situation which was conducive to young people leading a decent life and suddenly turning them into hooligans and stone-throwers. It is important to point out that the balance is split distinctly into stone-throwing hooligans—the delinquents, the type of person that I have been describing—and the vicious young thugs and killers who are the products primarily of the youth movements of the IRA.
I have many friends and relatives in the RUC in Belfast. They have told me that in the New Lodge Road area and in other places they have apprehended explosives experts aged 13, 12-year-old armaments experts and quartermasters

aged 14. Unfortunately we have that group of killers and potential killers, and we must not forget it.
I do not think that an extra wing in the Crumlin Road or another cage in Long Kesh is the way to handle the young people. They are equally the product of their background and environment. We must concern ourselves with their education and physical well-being and try to give them training which will equip them for other things than those for which they are now being equipped.
It would be nice to think that we were talking in terms of six or 12 months, but the present level of violence in Northern Ireland is almost as bad as the level of 12 months ago. Unfortunately the end is not immediately in sight. We are not talking about a situation that will last for six or 12 months. I could not agree in normal times to put a young child with hardened criminals. In normal times that could not be condoned. Of course, to put children with the type of people who are in the Crumlin Road and Long Kesh is to compound the problem.
We should seriously and urgently be considering setting up a secure young persons' remand centre. We shall need it. More teenagers will be arrested. As we eat into the adult membership of the IRA, more young people will be arrested and we shall have to handle them. We must adopt the attitude that I adopt to the three boys I am rearing in Northern Ireland. I am hopeful and optimistic that they will live through the present situation without being tarnished. They are not living in an ivory tower or in a vast container. Perhaps it is necessary to be a bit of an optimist to live in certain parts of Northern Ireland.
I believe that we can pull our way out of the present troubles. I believe that the young republicans are still open to influence. If we create the right type of institutions we shall have the opportunity, while they are secure, to try to undo some of the damage that has been done.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mr. Moyle) on his appointment as Minister of State. It is a job to which he is particularly well suited because of


his experience of Northern Ireland and in advising people about Northern Ireland. He could not have started off with a worse measure to have to introduce to the House, and I commiserate with him.
The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) made a good point when he said that he could not condemn his young listeners who had been on a voyage of destruction because by doing so he would be condemning himself. We are thinking now of imprisoning young people in the Crumlin Road on remand for an indefinite period. When the troubles started these young people were in primary school, thinking perhaps of transferring to a secondary or grammar school. They are not just young IRA thugs; they are thugs from right across the community, as my hon. Friends who were with me in the Crumlin Road can confirm. Whether they are IRA thugs or Tartan thugs or of any other organisation we have to be concerned about them as people.
We who have responsibility have seen what is happening and have perhaps thought that if we looked away from the problem it would disappear. We have failed miserably in our treatment and assessment of young people who come from the depressed areas of cities and villages and rural and urban slums. There is also a sprinkling of the middle classes, the poetry writers. These are the people who are our particular concern. We must therefore look carefully at the Bill and its provisions.
With several hon. Members I visited remand centres in Northern Ireland, and I pay tribute to Lord Donaldson for his delightful company and for the splendid way in which he explained his problem and organised the trip. He brought together all who were concerned with the problem, including the principals of training schools, prison governors, the Army and the civil authority, so that we could consider all the arguments.
I know the sensitivity of my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I understand the embarrassment he must have felt at having to introduce the Bill. One knows that with his Home Office experience he would revolt against it. I have regretfully come to the conclusion that the Bill is necessary, not because of the problems of the security forces but because of the work that has been done by

the training centres. They have a tradition which must not be lost. For example, in St. Patrick's right next to Anders-town, there is an open boys' training centre.
One of the strangest things about the situation is that with the sanctuary so close there have not been many more absconsions. One of the great things one saw there was evidence of the training and dedication of the brothers and the staff. I am told by those who have visited Lesniven that there is the same dedication and awareness there of the problems. The desire to maintain this sort of open institution holds out a hope for something better in the future—a better and more ordered way of running society and of treating young people. Therefore, I regret the decision to introduce the Bill, but such a measure has to be supported.
I did not support the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill, nor will I the renewal of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, not because I wish to deny the Army's powers but because of the incidence of detention. I regard detention as dishonest within the terms of that order and politically disastrous. I warned against it before it was introduced and have regrettably seen my fears proved so true.
I mention the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act because it is in this context that young people are being caught. When one comes to this situation one realises there is a problem. It may have to be dealt with immediately. I shall come later to the other points, where I think my hon. Friend has not done his case sufficient justice.
In this situation, why have Crumlin? We are told that it is secure and that these people will be accommodated separately in a hospital wing. But those young people and their visitors will go through the entrances used by their political heroes. They will pass through a tremendous system of security. In this situation there is a fear of getting, if not graduates from terrorist schools as one gets from Long Kesh, certainly a sort of academic accolade of O- or A-level students or even the scholarship level people that one obtains from the Crumlin. This will distinguish the institution from St. Patrick's with a degree of selectivity one would not want to see. I am not suggesting that one wants a com-


prehensive prison. I suggest that one has to look very carefully at the effects that this will have on particular individuals.
When I look at the terms of the Bill and the way the powers will be exercised, I see that this will be an executive power, an executive exercise. Will the Secretary of State, through his representative in the court, make an announcement in the court that the young person is to be remanded to the Crumlin gaol—or presumably, if it is a young girl, to Armagh? After the two-month period, will a statement again be made in the court or will there be an automatic renewal? Will there be any way in which the question of renewal—the Secretary of State's assessment of the potentiality to escape of the particular person on remand—can be challenged? How in the first place will these people be chosen to enter Crumlin?
We should like to have from the Minister a list of the people who have absconded. We should also like to know what is the percentage of young people charged with crimes in relation to the total community.
One person who is brought up on a scheduled offence may be sent to Crumlin Prison, whereas another person who comes up for the same scheduled offence may be sent to St. Patrick's or Lisnevin. The young person who is sent to Crumlin is put at a disadvantage compared with the other young person who does not go there, and a situation is created in which there is a degree of selectivity over which no competent social worker, lawyer or judge will be able to challenge the Secretary of State. We do not know the criteria because it will be purely and simply an executive decision—a decision not justified in open court.
What do I conclude from all this? I conclude that anybody on a scheduled offence is likely to be sent to Crumlin Prison. Therefore, we must look at the provision made for young people in the prison wing. When we saw the wing it was in the best possible circumstances. It was a sunny day and the place appeared to be bright-walled. The sun can make a slum look like a palace. We went into rooms where the teacher-pupil ratio was one to four, a ratio with which I should like to have worked when I was a teacher. We

went into rooms which were clean, neat and well-kept. I am sure that the conditions were not laid on for us and, indeed, that the rooms are always like that. We saw a classroom which was full of good equipment—again, equipment which I would like to have seen when I was a teacher. We saw in the wing a good range of books. But—and here comes the rub—we saw the wing when there were only four people there.
I repeat that we saw the prison under the best possible conditions, but I want to know what will happen as more and more people come in on scheduled offences. The Secretary of State, with the best will in the world, will not draw a distinction between those who should go to Crumlin and those who should not. If this happens there will be overcrowding and young people will go to the wing—youths who have been sentenced and who are awaiting assessment before dispersal. Then the "graduates" will appear—in other words, the people who have come in having been convicted. I believe that a real problem will be created in the new wing of the Crumlin Prison. Because of the nature of the wide, sweeping powers, the system will not single out the potential escapee but will send to Crumlin any person who the security forces feel should go there.
The Minister will need to give the House more details. We should like to know the number of young people involved in scheduled offences, how many have absconded and what was the nature of their scheduled offences. We also want to know whether these scheduled offences were specifically associated with a political motive as opposed to politics-cum-thuggery.
I should also like to know what sort of education is likely to be aimed at in this establishment. Young people who are in such a place for nine months or a year may spend their time going to and from the prison, and I should like to be given information about what proper educational process can take place in such a situation and how the Government propose to deal with it. This too we should know, because at least in the training schools there are workshops, swimming pools and other facilities to keep the young people's minds active and not inward-looking to high walls and thick bars.
I come back to whether we shall have enough teachers, how we shall get them and whether we shall be able to give them the range of subjects and the training facilities necessary in a place of this kind. As a small secure place for half a dozen it is smashing and I could have no complaint about it. But I believe that it will expand and expand.
I have these requests to make to my hon. Friend. The first is for more details of figures. The second is to know exactly what procedure is to be followed. The third, which perhaps we may have to seek to do in Committee by moving amendments, is to ask my hon. Friend to consider presenting a report to us on the workings of the Act before we are asked to renew these powers, because I am sure that we shall be asked to renew them. If we say that we are doing this in a very special case because it concerns young people who are so dear to us, the very least which can be offered is that, before we are asked to consent to these powers again after the passing of this measure, there should be an account prepared and properly assessed of the workings of the system. These are not matters that we should have to drag out of the Executive by means of question and answer.

9.37 p.m.

Mr. James Kilfedder: I have a special interest in this Bill because I represent a constituency which has more corrective establishments in it than any other constituency in Northern Ireland and, for that matter, than any other in the United Kingdom. I have in North Down not only the only borstal in Northern Ireland. I have the Rathgael training school. I have the Lisnevin centre for young offenders. I also have the Maze Prison. Therefore I can speak with a little authority on these matters.
I thought that this was a relatively simple Bill—unpalatable, perhaps, but a necessary Bill. Yet I found myself listening first to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and then to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara) and I wondered just what we were debating.
The hon. Member for West Lothian showed great compassion—and I must say that I believe we should show compassion to all young offenders. But perhaps the

hon. Member ought to look at borstals and other training centres in Great Britain. When I practised at the Bar here, until 1970 when I was returned to this House, I saw these places and I saw the young persons in them. I found a more fearsome story there in comparison with Northern Ireland, and the offences with which those persons were charged were minor compared with the charges facing those detained in similar centres in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Dalyell: I was careful to say that I had no criticism of the prison staff and the governors. But I have found in no borstal on this side of the Channel the sheer hatred of Westminster, of politicians and of authority that is to be found in Ireland. What is more, the sight of youngsters from both communities drilling voluntarily would never be seen in a borstal here.

Mr. Klifedder: I have heard of cases of young persons in centres in Great Britain committing arson, assaults on prison warders and all sorts of different crimes while in these institutions. I agree that we cannot criticise the staff in Northern Ireland. We must praise them for their dedication and the way in which they control their establishments.
Let me just deal with the example mentioned by the hon. Gentleman about young persons drilling. Whose fault is that? Is that our fault? Is it the fault of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? Should we not put an end to drilling, or is that beyond the powers of those who control these establishments?
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central nearly brought tears to my eyes when he spoke about the difficulty facing the Secretary of State in deciding whether a young person charged with a scheduled offence should go to prison or to some other place.
The hon. Gentleman talked of a young person going to prison and being denied the sight of green fields. Who in Northern Ireland suffers most? Some of these young persons may be innocent. Certainly we do not condemn them until they have been tried and found guilty. But what about the bereaved, the maimed, the terrorised? Should we not pay some attention to the great majority in the community, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike? That is why the Diplock Com-


mission recommended a secure place to accommodate these young people. The hon. Gentleman may show a great regard for these young persons, but I think that he should also bear in mind that in courts in this country—I am not talking about Secretaries of State—magistrates, high court judges and others every day of the week have to decide whether a person should be remanded in custody or allowed bail.
Often cases are quoted in the Press of people seemingly wrongly released on bail and others wrongly remanded in custody. That happens frequently. Quite apart from individual circumstances, a decision will vary from judge to judge. I have come across such cases. I have sometimes felt that certain people appearing before the courts ought to have been allowed bail when it had been denied and that others who were granted bail should have been remanded in custody.

Mr. McNamara: When I expressed a degree of concern for these young people I hoped that it would be shared by the whole House. Surely we do not want any young person charged with a scheduled or any other type of offence to be put in this situation. We are all concerned about the safety of our society. That was why, regrettably, we felt that the Bill was necessary. But we should be equally concerned to see that the law is operated fairly and impartially. That is one of the main problems in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Kilfedder: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is referring to the traditional system that operated in Northern Ireland before the suspension of Stormont. I hope not, because that is not what we are debating.
Regrettably, it is necessary to have a system of detention. I do not like it, but I regard it as essential.
When travelling from Westminster to my constituency at the end of last week I was sitting beside a young Army officer. He told me that there was nothing more appalling than seeing someone who had been detained and then released and, in his opinion, engaged in terrorist activities, or seeing someone else well known to him as a terrorist not detained. That is what gets the Army down. Our soldiers feel

that they are fighting a battle against urban guerrillas but without the full support of Westminster. I forget the description given to these young people by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes).

Mr. Dalyell: "Apprentices in lawlessness" was the phrase used by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes).

Mr. Kilfedder: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. But the hon. Member for West Lothian thought when the Army first went in that the terrorism would be defeated in a matter of months. I remember giving up by own Adjournment debate in this House, when UDI was declared, to the right hon. Gentleman who was then Prime Minister. I was not thanked for it by him, I may remark, but that is neither here nor there. But he announced that within six months Rhodesia would be brought to heel. That is many years ago now.
It is the same with this situation. I believe that many in this country do not fully appreciate the reality in Northern Ireland just as they do not appreciate the reality in Scotland. That is why there is the genesis and spread of Scottish nationalism. It is the same in the North-East of England. Before leaving the hon. Gentleman's speech I must say I wondered whether Miss Hickey, the spokeswoman for the Provisional IRA, in Armagh Prison, meant her words to be uttered in this House or publicly,

Mr. Dalyell: Yes.

Mr. Kilfedder: Obviously, what she said proves that the people of Northern Ireland are best suited to make suggestions about what should happen. I hope that this will develop as a result of the White Paper.

Mr. Dalyell: rose—

Mr. Kilfedder: I do not wish to give way to the hon. Gentleman as it is getting rather late. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that with him on his visit was the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond), Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister. I do not know why he was speaking to the spokesman for the Provisional IRA and the women prisoners in Armagh but it would be interesting to find out.
May I deal with the borstal, which is only about one mile from my own home. It is interesting for me because police cars with their alarms sounding pass my home frequently—every time a borstal boy decides to abscond. Hardly a month passes without one or two boys escaping, and this adds enormously to the burden placed upon the police force, who should not have to chase after those who have been arrested, perhaps with the greatest difficulty; and of course it puts extra strain on the staff of the Borstal at Mill-isle who have an onerous task in helping those boys and putting them on the right path. That indicates, therefore, that there is a need for better security in these establishments and obviously a great need for the proposal in the Bill.

Mr. Dalyell: To be fair, the hon. Gentleman has referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond), and I must make it clear that we went to Long Kesh and Armagh with the blessing of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It was entirely above board. We were allowed to talk to whom we liked, and naturally we asked to talk to the spokeswoman.

Mr. Kilfedder: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's explanation and I am glad to have given way to him on the point. But at this borstal at Millisle, thousands of pounds worth of damage has been done, as I am sure the Minister can corroborate. Windows have been broken, doors have been ripped off and slates removed and damaged, and there has been damage to other facilities at the institution. This was not the case there a year or two ago. I would emphasise, as we all accept, that only a relatively small number of the inmates are involved in such conduct.
A few miles from my home is the industrial training school at Rathgael, in the suburbs of Bangor. Again, it does a good job. The staff try to help these boys. This is what we ask of anyone who is a teacher or a helper in some capacity in such corrective institutions. Boys are often seen in the seaside town under supervision, and they are well behaved.
Regrettably, that training school has been used from time to time to house some boys charged with serious criminal offences, generally activated by political

motives. The use of the training school for remanding such persons introduces an element of dissension and a degree of disrepute. It places an intolerable burden on the staff.
Outside Newtonards a young offenders centre has been established. This was against the wishes of the people in the area. The Government rode roughshod over them. As a result of representations I made to the then Secretary of State, an inquiry was held, but it was a rushed job. People could not organise the experts in time and the inspector who conducted the inquiry decided that the centre should go ahead.
The Minister has mentioned one example when four boys attempted to escape from Lisnevin. One of them was armed with a gun. The staff and the other boys were obviously put in grave danger. I dislike the fact that the young terrorists are there, can abscond and can wreak havoc in the community even if they do not escape across the border into the sanctuary provided by the Irish Republic.
I particularly welcome the fact that the persons in the category envisaged in the Bill, who are a danger as much to their co-religionists as to the whole community, can now be placed in prison and kept there for such time until they are due to appear in court.
These are not ordinary young persons. Many have been recruited by the IRA. Perhaps the behaviour of some is due to seeing others behave in a criminal fashion, and to seeing on television the results of terrorist activities. This is the fault of the news media. None the less, these young people are being used more extensively by the IRA, shooting at the police, the Army and members of the fire brigade. They have caused explosions. Many are members of the junior wing of the IRA, which is virtually the equivalent of the young thugs in the Hitler youth movement in pre-war Germany.
I know that the Secretary of State will exercise his responsibilities with discretion and caution. I hope he will exercise them firmly and with full regard to the need to secure the safety of the community and uphold the rule of law.
I am concerned that these young persons are to be sent to the hospital wing of the Belfast Prison which the right hon. Member for Ashford said could accommodate only about 17 young persons. More than 17 young people will need a secure place in which to be kept in custody. The Government should now prepare the ground for providing a place for these young people so that they and any relatives who visit them do not have to pass through prison gates.
The accommodation envisaged is too small. Is that why the Bill says in Clause 1(3) that they shall be held in custody
… in such prison or other place as may be specified in a direction given by the Secretary of State"?
Is it contemplated that these young people will be put in Lisnevin, and that it will be turned into a more secure unit? I should not like that to happen.
As I have often said since direct rule was imposed, it is high time that the Government decided that a new prison was built in Northern Ireland, with all modern amenities, that the preparations are now begun and a public inquiry held if necessary so that the building could be built within the year. I hope that, as a result of this debate, the Government will make a decision about a new prison.
Nevertheless, I welcome the Bill. I also welcome the Minister to his new post and wish him well in it.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I do not pretend to be an expert on Northern Ireland. I have been there only one day in my life, which I spent in three institutions—St. Patrick's Training School, Lisnevin Detention Centre and the Crumlin Road Prison. The Northern Ireland Office in its wisdom flew me and other hon. Members there to prepare us for this debate. I suppose that, in the way of Governments, the Department hoped that its forethought would be repaid with fresh support against some of those who might be inclined to oppose the Bill.
At St. Patrick's Roman Catholic institution we found dedication and an open system which was not ashamed of a 30 per cent. abscondence rate—including all the youths, not only the "political" ones. It stood in pleasant grounds and had a pleasant atmosphere, relying on

the persons voluntarily sent there wishing to take advantage of its facilities. One has to measure those advantages against the problem of putting in the institution youths charged with murder and attempted murder. Since they were on the edge of a Roman Catholic area which was not unknown for violence, the staff took the view that any soldiers brought in would attract the terrorism which up to then had been missing from the institution. The priests who ran it appeared to have the general confidence of the surrounding population.
Lisnevin has more security in the sense that those inside cannot easily get out without outside help, but there is no security against people outside aiding escapes. That is what happened when the IRA tied up the staff and released some of the boys. Boys who do not voluntarily go to these institutions are "called for" occasionally by the IRA when, it is suspected, one of their special skills is required for an operation.
One sympathises with the Army when it sees back on the streets someone it has arrested for a serious offence. It is an incentive to the UDA and the IRA to recruit young persons if they can say to them and their parents, "Don't worry—if you are caught you will be sent to an open remand institution and can leave the day after tomorrow."

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Motion relating to the Northern Ireland (Young Persons) Bill (Lords) and the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill (Lords) may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Golding.]

NORTHERN IRELAND (YOUNG PERSONS) BILL [Lords]

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Mr. Lyons: It seems to me that parents will be less inclined to have their children participate in this kind of operation if they know that when they are caught they will not easily walk out while on remand.
Crumlin Road is the place to which it is suggested that these young persons should go. I am not happy about Crumlin Road. I am familiar with prisons in this country, but there is about Crumlin Road a most terrible air of depression.
There is one wing for the UDA and another for the IRA Provisionals. It is for the Provisionals because the Officials have been driven out by the Provisionals. In the middle are the criminals known as "good honest criminals" because they are non-politicals. But in the centre where the good honest criminals are, there is another section known as the "protecteds"—men who live in terror of the IRA and the UDA, being suspected by their own side. They are like rabbits in hutches, virtually fenced in. One shudders to think what sort of existence they have. It is to this prison that it is proposed to send some young persons over 14 years of age and under 17 years of age.
Armagh Prison I have heard referred to as a "cardboard box." The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) says that children of 12 and 13 years old are now involved. I should like to hear from my hon. Friend what arrangements are being made for that kind of young person.
For those over 14 and under 17, prison is far from the ideal place. My instinctive reaction on hearing the proposal was one of opposition. But one knows that with serious offences akin to murder in this country, one does not normally allow bail and puts young people involved in a secure place. I wonder how many youngsters between 14 and 17 in this country are in prison awaiting trial. We have heard no figures about that. If there is such a situation in this country, it is sad, but in Northern Ireland we cannot have young persons accused of very serious offences escaping with ease so that they can walk about in triumph in their neighbourhoods again, saying, "I did this three days ago and they arrested me, but here I am back again. I am an example. Follow me."
With such considerations in mind, and with the consideration that persons of this kind may also corrupt what have been called the "honest young criminals of the ordinary type", one has to look at the accommodation offered in Crumlin Road. One has to bear in mind that,

under the emergency provision, no court in Northern Ireland is entitled to give anyone bail for a scheduled offence without leave of a High Court judge. It is not a question of young persons being put into custody who otherwise would not be there, but of persons remanded for a scheduled—that, is a serious—offence having automatically to be put into custody awaiting trial. The only question is where they should spend that time in custody. What is being suggested by the Bill is that they spend it in Belfast Prison—that is, the males; we have still not heard what is to happen to the females.
I looked at those premises. Those premises which have been converted for young persons will take only 12 in comfort. When I saw the premises there were already four young persons in them. They had been convicted. It does not need a special Act by this Parliament to send into that prison persons over the age of 14 and under 17 who have already been convicted. Four were there awaiting allocation. They had been there for some weeks. They were receiving education. Each had a textbook of a different type at a different level. It was clear that they would be allowed to pursue some kind of education. Those to whom I spoke had the intention of doing exactly that.
The remarkable thing was that the four young men were mixed—Protestant and Catholic. We have a prison divided between Catholic and Protestant for adults, but when it comes to those under 17 years of age, they are mixed. Although the four young men had been found guilty of kidnapping, car bombing or similar offences, there they were, mixing quite happily and in a friendly way. That struck me as being utterly astonishing in a prison in which the adult members of their religions had to be kept strictly apart for fear of the most terrible bloodshed.
I have come to the conclusion, regretfully, that I must support the Bill, as little as I like to see young people in prison. I support it, however, with this reservation. There are complaints that it is taking many months to bring persons to trial in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Bar is small. The new weight of work is too much for it. There ought to be provision for barristers from England to go out there to help with the case


burden so that people do not have to wait in custody for too long. However, that is not happening at present, with the result that people are waiting many months for trial. There ought to be special provision that when the person awaiting trial is under 17 years of age the trial should be speedy.
In the Bill it is said that the direction to be given by the Secreary of State will last for only two months unless it is renewed. It should not be necessary to renew any such order if absolute priority is given to trials involving persons under 17. That is what I should like to see. The hospital wing of the prison will take only about 30 people a year. If youngsters are there for six months and there is comfortable accommodation for only 12 people, only about 24 people will pass through the place annually. If it is said that the trials will not be hurried and that more young persons will be taken in, those young persons will be herded into very difficult conditions, which will be very bad for them. It is wrong that any one should be kept herded in that way.
If there are to be many juveniles charged with scheduled offences—that is, serious offences—it is essential that they be tried swiftly. My appeal to the Secretary of State tonight is that he ensures that that happens.

10.9 p.m.

Mr. Moyle: I have been asked a number of questions and, with the leave of the House, I should like to reply to them.
We have had a thoughtful and a sad debate because, first, none of the hon. Members who have taken part in the debate likes what is being proposed. Secondly, although we do not like what is proposed, we cannot offer an alternative solution to the problem, at least within the foreseeable future.
Having said that, I should like to thank the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) and other hon. Members who have offered me congratulations and felicitations, and sometimes sympathy, on my acquiring my post, and I thank them for wishing me well.
Perhaps I should answer the questions first by dealing with two points raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons). It is interesting to note that in 1973 4,323

young persons were received on remand into prison service establishments in England and Wales, so it is not unknown for young offenders to be received into prison establishments, even on this side of the water.
Another point is that the Bill makes no provision for young people under 14. We sincerely hope that the occasion will not arise, but if children of that age commit scheduled offences they will be dealt with under the normal remand provisions, which means that they will be put into insecure places. We are hoping, however, that there will not be a substantial demand from that point of view.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Central (Mr. McNamara) probably set the whole tone and feeling of the House in his thoughtful and, I think, compelling speech. It is worth noting that under the previous disposition the authorities remanded in prison those who were regarded as depraved and unruly, those who might have had a long career of damaging property, assaulting people, and so on. Now they can be remanded in prison if they are alleged to have committed murder or attempted murder and where that is their first-known offence. That is the difference between the régime which has operated hitherto and the régime which will apply in the future.
We have been asked what we are to do with these young people in the future. We intend to build a proper remand centre, hence the provision for confining people in a place other than under the terms of the Act, because we are hoping that if the Act is, unfortunately, in operation for another two or three years, there will be an alternative establishment to which these young people may be sent. It will provide 300 places and its site has been decided upon. It is in High Bank Road, Purdysburn, Belfast. We have bought the site and planning permission has been given and we are therefore going ahead. I hope that that news will serve to allay a number of the worries expressed at the beginning of the debate.

Mr. Deedes: Do I understand that the ages provided for in this new establishment will be from 16 to 21, not 14 to 21? Is the terminal date for building—which is 1977—about right, because if that is so, it answers many questions


about how far this is a temporary measure and how long we shall wait for something better?

Mr. Moyle: The aim is to have this institution in existence by 1977. Obviously I cannot say that it will be in existence by then because building plans often get held up. I cannot be specific about the ages. I think the right hon. Gentleman is correct, but perhaps I may check that and let him know later in writing. These are the general outlines for the new remand centre.
We were asked about how the Secretary of State might proceed to make his decisions. In all probability he will do so personally. He intends personally to consider every proposal put forward for remanding these young people to prison or, possibly eventually, to the remand centre. He will do that on the basis of the information available to the court, on the basis of probation officers' reports, reports from the parents and reports from the Army. The Secretary of State's decision will be conveyed to the court once he has made it. The decision will not necessarily be announced in public, although there will be no objection to its being made public. That is the procedure upon which my right hon. Friend intends to act.
I was asked some specific questions by the right hon. Member for Ashford. The secure unit will be maintained at Lisnevin because it is regarded as necessary to the operation of Lisnevin as a remand home. It consists of a high wire fence. The main door is locked except when boys are allowed out, but it is not really secure. Any determined teenager could climb the fence if he had the time to do it, but the fence acts as a kind of disincentive, and it will be maintained.
With regard to the possibility of an epidemic in Crumlin Road Prison, the existing hospital wing on the ground floor, which is used as a detention centre for young offenders, still has 20 hospital beds and therefore the prison can deal with an epidemic of 20 cases at any one time. If the number went beyond that, people could be treated in cells which could possibly be isolated.
It is probably clear to the House that the Bill is a stop-gap measure. The question was raised whether the Bill

applied to young women as well as young men. It does. If a young woman has to be remanded on a scheduled offence, she will be remanded to Armagh Prison. The accommodation at the hospital wing in Belfast is for about 17 young people.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will use the provisions of the Bill only in exceptional cases—

Mr. Dalyell: If young women are to be remanded to the women's prison in Armagh, may we have an undertaking. or at least a comment, on the proposal that either a senior education officer or a senior social worker from England or Scotland should pass a professional opinion on that establishment?

Mr. Moyle: I was coming to the points which my hon. Friend raised during the debate, but first I must tell the right hon. Member for Ashford that it will be possible to send 14-year-olds to the new remand centre, but there will be no minimum age of 16.
I turn to the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). Being a Welshman, I take umbrage at being lumped with Anglo-Saxons in this country. I think he will take note of that for the future. It does not make much difference now; it is merely a personal point. But if I understood him correctly, it seemed that he was under a misconception when he said that the British military presence had caused the problem which we have been discussing. We could withdraw the British Army, but as long as this House has legislative responsibility for Northern Ireland we would still face the problem which we are now trying to solve. I assume that I have understood his point correctly and, if so, that is how I see it.
We were asked to look at the prisons. My noble Friend the Under-Secretary is responsible for prisons. He visits them continually and has carried out all the programme of visiting and consultation which has been referred to. Although I am not directly responsible for prisons I have seen this problem on the ground and I have taken the time to inform myself of the practical problems.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian mentioned social workers or education officers from this country. I am not aware that people of that sort have


been to the prisons. I shall look into this and see whether arrangements can be made, if anyone is willing to visit the prisons.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central referred to education. There is no doubt that the education of these young people will be disturbed. Unfortunately, in Northern Ireland it may be more disturbed outside the Crumlin Prison than inside, by virtue of the areas from which they come. To some extent, the disturbance from which their education suffers is offset by the fact that, so far anyway, they are taught in classes of a size which would be the envy of most of my hon. Friend's constituents and my constituents and parents in other constituencies.
I think that that covers most of the major points raised in the debate.

Mr. McNamara: My hon. Friend said that he would give me some figures. If they are not readily available, a letter explaining the situation will be welcome.

Mr. Moyle: I apologise to my hon. Friend. Twenty-six per cent. of those arrested for scheduled offences abscond. I regret that I do not have the figures of the total of crime within Northern Ireland, and I shall write to my hon. Friend with that information.
The House seems to have been in regretful support of the measure. I am grateful for that support.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

SOLICITORS (AMENDMENT) BILL [Lords]

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

The following new Clause stood upon the Order Paper:

PRINCE OF WALES' RIGHTS AS DUKE OF CORNWALL

Notwithstanding anything in the Stannaries Act 1855 the solicitor to the Duchy of Cornwall shall be a qualified solicitor and the words "or the Duchy of Cornwall" in section 87 of the principal Act shall be construed accordingly.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), who tabled the new Clause, is not present.

Mr. Mark Hughes: I wish to move the Second Reading on behalf of my hon. Friend, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: That cannot be done.

Clause 2

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Solicitor-General (Mr. Peter Archer): I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 19, at end insert—
'(1A) It shall be the Society's duty before submitting training regulations to the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls for their concurrence under subsection (1) above, to consult the Secretary of State, or, if he so directs, any person or body of persons specified in the direction'.
Perhaps you will permit me, Mr. Speaker, within the rules of order, or only barely trespassing outside them, to explain that unhappily my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) has had to visit hospital following an accident, and perhaps I may also be permitted to express our disappointment and the sympathy of the House.
The amendment has emerged from discussion in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) asked that there should be provision for what he called community input in the discussions concerning legal education. My hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, West and Southampton, lichen (Mr. Mitchell) proposed that there should

be consultations by the Law Society before submitting regulations to the Lord Chancellor and to the other judges.
One difficulty which arose is that the discussions on the Ormrod proposals are still proceeding, so that it is not yet clear for what education system we are legislating. There may come a time when the first stage in the training of a solicitor is an academic course leading to a university degree, and it is not suggested that the Law Society should attempt to control either the teachers or the students. Even at present the regulations specify certain educational qualifications before enrolment. They are often obtained at universities or polytechnics, and the Law Society does not seek to intervene in the courses leading to those qualifications.
The problem was to devise a form appropriate to whatever system may emerge. At present the regulations are made by the Law Society with the concurrence of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls, who require to be unanimous. What was wanted was a form of consultation representing the lay public, necessarily by someone who was not a lawyer. It was argued in Committee that
the Secretary of State for Education and Science and persons or bodies whom he thought should be consulted
might be the most suitable form of consultation. That is what is now proposed. I hope that it may be felt to inject the necessary element of what my hon. Friend called community input and to meet the arguments raised in Committee.

Sir Michael Havers: I rise only to see within what limits the amendment may be. It says that the Secretary of State, who I imagine is the Secretary of State for Education and Science, may direct that
any person or body of persons
may be consulted. I should like to have some reassurance that these matters will be kept within a certain framework. I do not see any future Secretary of State playing the fool with this provision, but it must be within the context of university education or within the limits of necessary legal training.
When we look further through the Bill we find that everything else regarding legal training is contained within the limitation of training regulations. I should like reassurance from the Solicitor-General that this matter will be dealt with in a way which will impose a sensible limitation when outside bodies are asked to advise.

Mr. Christopher Price: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for tabling the amendment. After all the discussions that have taken place it is a useful and necessary amendment.
I agree that this is a Government Bill, but it was taken over from the Law Society. I have always wondered how the society could ever have come forward with a Bill proposing training regulations, in an atmosphere in which the Ormrod Committee suggested that a great deal more of the training of solicitors and barristers should take place within our universities and polytechnics, without any proposals that consultation should take place with educational interests.
It is a small but important point that in new Section 2A the word "legal" has been dropped from the phrase "…legal education, training …" which appeared in the previous section. In my opinion that is a proper omission. We discussed this matter in Committee. I think that the omission of "legal" is partly a recognition of the fact that we do not want our solicitors to be only legally educated. It is right that the Law Society and the Lord Chancellor should call in the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I do not know why the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) is worried about the sort of people the Secretary of State might call in.

Sir Michael Havers: I am not worried, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell the House what sort of other education he expects these people should be subjected to in this context.

Mr. Price: I find "subjected to" an extraordinary phrase to use when referring to education. Be that as it may, I believe that it is necessary for our lawyers to have a far wider understanding of society. They should have an understanding of a broad area or sociology and an understanding of the widest aspects of

society—for example, political life, community life and new community developments of every form. I should expect lawyers to have that sort of education. including experience of community work.
More and more young solicitors are dissatisfied with the sort of education they have received. They are going in not for the traditional forms of solicitors' work but for a much wider range of work—for example, neighbourhood law centres.

Sir Michael Havers: Will the hon. Gentleman please tell us what subjects young student solicitors should be asked to read over and above the subjects included in the course they are required to take by the Law Society?

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Price: If I hesitate before answering the question it is not because I am ducking it. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will study the syllabuses of universities and polytechnics, he will find that the word "subjects" is becoming irrelevant and out of date, because the syllabuses are multi-disciplinary. If the hon. and learned Gentleman wants a list, I suggest sociology, psychology and economics—not a complete course in those subjects but education on those aspects which bear particularly on the law.
We shall be told that these subjects are already covered, but in my view they are inadequately covered. The Secretary of State mentioned in the amendment—presumably the Secretary of State for Education and Science, who is responsible for education in its widest sense—should be allowed to comment on these training regulations before they are finally made with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls.
I am no great supporter of Europe and I do not want to call it in aid unnecessarily, but in the consideration which the European Commission is giving to the professions far greater emphasis is put on the necessity for a wider educational context. Europe has a far better idea of the sort of education which we should be giving to our professionals than has the Law Society.
For that reason I welcome the amendment, I hope that the Solicitor-General


will direct the attention of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the amendment and ensure that the proper arrangements are made in the Department to exercise over the profession an educational and community input which is wider than the confines of the profession itself. I hope that that will apply also over a wider range of professions which have stood apart ever since the nineteenth century.

Mr. Walter Clegg: I rise not to oppose the amendment but to say a few words as one who is qualified as a lawyer. I declare my interest as a solicitor. I do not have a law degree. I qualified in the old-fashioned way by serving for five years—a period which was interrupted by the war. I am told by the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) that that training was inadequate for the service of my clients, and that I must at least have someone to oversee me and to train me in sociology, psychology and all the other "ologies" that he puts forward.
The hon. Gentleman neglected to say that one learns by experience. Someone who is articled to a solicitor meets people across the table, and when he asks such questions as, "Did you beat your wife, or did your wife beat you?" he learns a little about sociology and how people live and work.
The hon. Gentleman is too critical of the Law Society while implying that solicitors do not have real contact with the real world. The real world, it would appear to the hon. Gentleman, exists in the universities, the sociology laboratories and similar institutions. It is all very well the hon. Gentleman going on like that. There is nothing like practising as a solicitor, reaching people and talking to them about practical problems. I should hate to think that anybody ever qualified as a solicitor—I am not speaking of the Bar—without meeting people, talking to them and dealing with their problems. Otherwise, the solicitor would find himself in a great deal of trouble when he came to practise.

Mr. Christopher Price: I agree that too much "ology" can ruin education. I hold no brief for those subjects. The solicitor sees his client across the table in one image. I should like more solicitors to understand the sort of family back-

ground in which the client has grown up and what has brought him to the point where he wishes to visit a solicitor. For that reason I should like legal training to include social work and practical training, so that the young solicitor sees his first client across the table far more as a member of a family with problems and less as just somebody sitting on the other side of his table.

Mr. Clegg: The hon. Gentleman seems to regard solicitors as people without any sort of background who suddenly appear behind office desks. Perhaps I can explain my own background so that the hon. Gentleman can see how I look at a client across a table.
My grandfather and father were cotton weavers in mills. My father progressed in the world. I became a solicitor because of my father's hard work. I know these people. I practise within the constituency which I now represent. I know what fishermen are. I talk to them. When I see them across the table I understand them not because of any course of education but because I meet with and talk to them. This training is one component in the Law Society's system of articles. This cannot be taught, much as the hon. Gentleman would like that.
The Law Society would be well advised to consult with the educational authorities about the courses they provide. An interchange between them would do no harm.
I support this amendment.

Mr. Mark Hughes: I listened with deep interest to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman on the need for a solicitor to be trained in the solicitor's craft. I listened with equal interest to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) on the need for the solicitor to be educated in other matters.
What worries me is that there appears to be a loophole in the Bill through which, if he so chose, H.R.H. the Prince of Wales could drive a fairly large coach and horses. I refer to Section 31 of the Stannaries Act 1855, Sections 1 to 30 and 32 to 38 of which were repealed in 1896. Section 31 remains on the Statute Book and contains this information:
Any person appointed to act as solicitor for the Duchy of Cornwall may practise as such in all courts


…Whenever any person shall be appointed by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, or other the personage for the time being entitled to the possessions of the Duchy of Cornwall, to act as attorney or solicitor in the affairs of the said Duchy, it shall be lawful for such person to act and practise as such attorney or solicitor in such affairs in all and every court, jurisdiction, and place in any and every part of the United Kingdom, any statute, order, rule, usage, or custom relating to attornies or solicitors, or the admission, inrolment, or practice of attornies or solicitors, to the contrary notwithstanding.
When we are considering that it shall be the Law Society's duty—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. I am slightly confused by the hon. Gentleman's speech. We are dealing with Government Amendment No. 1. The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) is referring to the Stannaries Act, and I suspect that he is speaking to new Clause 1, which was not moved.

Mr. Mark Hughes: It was moved, most definitely.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand that it was not.

Mr. Hughes: Then may I say this? The amendment says:
It shall be the Society's duty before submitting training regulations …
However, I understand that, whatever the society's duty may be, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales may appoint a solicitor who has no training qualifications at all.
The amendment has been honourably and beautifully moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to give the society certain powers and to suggest that it should consult the Secretary of State or, if he so directs,
any person or body of persons specified in the direction.
Is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales considered to be a person or body of persons specified in the direction under the amendment? If he is not, I want to know how the ordinary solicitors envisaged in this legislation are to be made compatible with the still existing legal enactment under the Stannaries Act 1855.
It is no good my hon. and learned Friend moving this amendment which says that the society's duty shall be to do this, that and the other, when there is

a person who, however excellent his intentions, has the ability written into a statute to avoid the intentions of the amendment.
This amendment seeks to lay down that the Law Society shall take certain actions and shall consult the Secretary of State before setting up a procedure for training. At the same time, the legislation allows another person to obviate and get round the whole of that process. It is curious that my hon. and learned Friend should move an amendment suggesting that the Law Society shall do various things, in the full and certain knowledge that, if His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales chooses, he can make solicitors by the dozen. That makes a complete nonsense of the amendment.

Mr. Clegg: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker—or are we on a point of order already? I am not sure.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I wonder whether the hon. Member for Durham is circumventing the ruling which I gave. I think that he is attempting to introduce an argument which I understand would have been relevant to new Clause 1. However, that new Clause was not moved. The hon. Gentleman must confine himself to the substance of Amendment No. 1.

Mr. Hughes: I accede to your ruling, of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Therefore I ask the Solicitor-General whether he will consider, before Third Reading, introducing after the words "submitting training regulations" some concept that, where no training regulations are required, as is the case for those solicitors appointed to the Stannaries Court under the Stannaries Act 1855, such people should have some sort of training. I should be delighted to be appointed by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall as a solicitor under the Stannaries Act.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Clegg: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are not the hon. Gentleman's remarks on a serious Bill to regulate a worthwhile profession just a series of nonsenses about the Duchy of Cornwall? He seems to be filibustering the Bill.

Mr. Hughes: With the greatest deference—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that I should point out that the clause deals with the training of persons seeking admission as solicitors. I do not see how we can include the Duchy of Cornwall in this matter.

Mr. Hughes: With the greatest deference, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am not seeking to make a nonsense of the Bill. I am worried that there should exist upon the Statute Book one of those anachronistic statutes which enables a particular person to appoint as a solicitor someone who has not had any training. When the Bill is enacted that right will still reside in His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. I have no wish to delay the progress of the Bill, but to include a process for the training of solicitors while at the same time leaving this totally anachronistic and anomalous situation open seems to make a mockery of decent law making in this House.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: rose—

Sir Michael Havers: I understand that we are still on a point of order.

Mr. Hughes: No. I gave way to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No. Perhaps we could come to that in a moment. I understand that the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Mitchell) is intervening.

Sir M. Havers: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When the debate started new Clause 1 was sought to be moved. Your predecessor in the Chair refused to accept it. We are now discussing Amendment No. I. We have had a very interesting and fascinating diversion for the past 10 or 15 minutes, but this is an attempt to circumvent your predecessor's decision. I suggest, on a point of order, that the hon. Gentleman's speech is an attempt to get round your predecessor's ruling.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Arising from a point of order I hoped that I made it clear that the Second Reading of new Clause 1 had not been moved. I find it difficult to understand how the hon. Gentleman can relate the substance of that new clause to the amendment that we are discussing.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Amendment No. 1 seeks to provide:
It shall be the Society's duty before submitting training regulations … to consult the Secretary of State, or, if he so directs, any person or body of persons specified in the direction.
Could it not, according to those last few words, be directed to consult His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales?

Mr. Hughes: I do not wish to make a tomfoolery of this House or of the Bill. I loathe anachronistic and out-of-date legislation being carried on. I want to know whether the words,
any person or body of persons specified in the direction",
mean that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales will be consulted on who and how solicitors in the Duchy of Cornwall shall be trained. It is a perfectly proper matter to raise.

Sir Michael Havers: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This must, with respect, be yet another attempt to get round Mr. Speaker's ruling. It was ruled that the new Clause could not be moved, and this is a device, at this late stage, to try to get round the ruling of your predecessor in the Chair. I must protest on behalf of the Opposition.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Clause 2, which governs education and training, refers specifically to the
training of persons seeking admission as solicitors",
and those are the operative words. I must ask the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) to leave the point that he has been making because Mr. Speaker ruled that new Clause 1 could not be discussed.

Mr. Hughes: May I ask you a simple question, Mr. Deputy Speaker? Are you prepared, while occupying the Chair, to see go on to the statute book a measure which permits a totally unqualified person to be admitted to the rôle of solicitor?

Mr. Clegg: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I may first answer the hon. Member for Durham. I abide by Mr. Speaker's ruling in this matter. New Clause 1 was not moved, and therefore I consider it out of order to discuss the point that has been raised by


the hon. Member because it is not relevant to Amendment No. 1 which is being debated.

Mr. Bob Cryer: I shall not detain the House for long because I want to telephone my wife, but I have a series of relevant points to make.
I welcome the amendment because it opens up the shroud that has hung round the training of lawyers and solicitors—we are here concerned solely with solicitors—for far too long. The aim of the amendment is to ensure that consultations take place to widen the scope of entry to the profession of persons wishing to become solicitors.
The House should be clear that, following the implementation of the Ormrod report, we expect some radical improvement in the training of solicitors. For too long their training has been a device to confine the profession exclusively—not entirely, but largely so—to a body of persons who can afford to send their sons or daughters to be articled.

Mr. Clegg: Does the hon. Gentleman know what he is talking about? I have been a solicitor for many years. I have taken articled clerks from working-class families, paid them through their articles and had them qualified. I do not see how the hon. Gentleman can argue that the profession is seeking to keep people back. There may have been some reason for the hon. Gentleman's at the time that I became an articled clerk. My father paid £80 in stamp duty and £200 to the person who articled me. Since I have been in practice I have not required any payment. I pay my articled clerks and give them a jolly good training. The hon. Gentleman ought to speak from practical experience, or not at all.

Mr. Cryer: I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman intervened, because what he said indicates the complacency which I must tell you exists in the legal profession.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member does not tell the Chair anything.

Mr. Cryer: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I must tell the hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Gentleman, if we insist on this archaic procedure, that among people outside solicitors as a profession are regarded not as a public service

but as an expensive necessity in the last resort.
This amendment widens the educational scope. Solicitors provide a valuable public service in my view, but that is not the view of many people outside this House. I accept the point that the days of the very high premium and restricted entry are going. But they have not yet gone. The hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) cannot tell me that every solicitor's firm never asks for a premium and never pays poverty level wages during articles. He knows that there are some firms which do just this. I used to teach students in a technical college who were taking various legal courses so I do not speak without experience.
This amendment will have a twofold result. First, it will enable entry to the profession to be through ordinary educational institutions—

Mr. Clegg: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that at the moment a person does not have to take a course confined to the study of law to become a solicitor? It may take a person a year longer, but he can study some other discipline, say in the arts or sciences, and then qualify as a lawyer because he is a practical person. The present system does not mean that people in other disciplines can never become solicitors.

Mr. Cryer: That is right. What I am concerned with is the person who has not been through some other discipline and who wishes to enter the legal profession at once. Like all professions the legal profession needs able, intelligent, capable people. In many cases sons and daughters of working-class people are being denied entry to the legal profession because of the barriers erected, apparently not by the hon. Gentleman's firm, but by many other partnerships.
If, by taking the education of solicitors outside the narrow ambit of the law and looking to other institutions, we can get a fresh wind into the professional educational system, then we shall not diminish the profession but improve it. This is undeniable. I welcome this amendment. Hopefully it will be taken note of. Hopefully the Ormrod Committee's report will be acted on. I do not want the conservative legal profession to put the Ormrod Committee's report on the shelf.
I would like to see articles in the profession disappearing. I recognise the value of some form of practical education. I want more and more institutions, technical colleges, polytechnics, being able to mount courses which can form either part of a day-release course or part of a sandwich course pattern to widen the entry into the profession. Only in this way will the exclusive nature of the solicitors' profession be eroded so that sons and daughters of working people can have a genuine opportunity to enter the profession as easily as they can enter any other profession or occupation.

Sir Michael Havers: The hon. Gentleman is constantly talking about restrictions to entry to the legal profession. I should like to make it clear that, certainly at the Bar, and I am sure that the learned Solicitor-General will agree, there are no restrictions of any kind. Consider my own Chambers of 23 or 24 members. Not more than four, probably three, were educated at what we would call public schools. Most of them have been to university, most under their own steam. There is no restriction on admission to the Bar save that one can pass the exams, and I suspect that this is largely the case with the solicitors' profession.
11.0 p.m.
The impression given by the hon. Member is that this is a restricted profession, limited to those with the money to pay for it. That is totally untrue of the Bar, and I am sure that the Solicitor-General will be able to speak of the solicitors as well. It would be wrong if any message went out from the House tonight that entry to either branch of the legal profession was limited in this way, when we are desperately short of recruits on both sides to these honourable professions.

Mr. Cryer: The hon. and learned Member will realise that my remarks are designed to widen entry to the legal professions. The system of dinners which pupils have to undergo seems to most people anachronistic—

Mr. Clegg: On a point of order. This is a Bill dealing with solicitors, and we do not have dinners to qualify for our profession, so this part of the hon. Member's speech must be out of order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): The House will know that I have just come into the Chair. The hon. Member will no doubt be coming to the substance of the amendment.

Mr. Cryer: I would have concluded my remarks but for the interjections. I was replying to an extensive interjection by the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers). Since he referred to the barristers' profession, it seemed only reasonable that I should reply. When apprentice engineers have to prove their attendance at dinners in order to complete a course, I will accept that the barristers' profession is not restricted.
I welcome the amendment, which I hope will meet the criticisms which have been made, by opening wide a far too restrictive, hierarchical and remote profession to the sons and daughters of working people.

Mr. Clegg: Would the hon. Gentleman like to tell his right hon. Friend the Minister for Planning and Local Government, who is present on the Front Bench, that the solicitors' profession is restricted in that way? The right hon. Gentleman is a very successful member of the profession—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is wicked to tempt the right hon. Gentleman at this time of night.

The Solicitor-General: This has been a lively and interesting debate—more so than I had originally hoped.
The Bill will be warmly welcomed by both the profession and the public. A number of us worked very hard for a considerable time to ensure that it found the statute book. We worked in an atmosphere of good temper and constructive suggestions. It would be a pity if the temperature were suddenly to rise and the Bill close its career in an atmosphere of ill-temper. I hope that will not happen.
I am disappointed that I could not tonight enter a debate on new Clause 1, but I will certainly write to my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes), and we may be able to discuss his interesting points privately. All I am permitted to do tonight within the rules of order is answer his question. There would certainly be power under


the amendment for the Secretary of State to direct that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales should be consulted. I think it a little unlikely that he would exercise that power. I am even prepared to enter into public discussion with my hon. Friend if he so wishes. Clearly, there is a lot more to be said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) asked whether the Secretary of State envisaged as exercising the functions under the Bill was the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The answer is, "Yes". My hon. Friend pointed out that the Bill no longer refers to "legal education and training". That is true. We discussed this in Committee. It is true partly for the reason he suggested—that it is hoped that a narrow concept of what used to be called "text book legal training" may now be a little outmoded. But it is a training for "persons seeking to be admitted or to practise as solicitors".
We can all suggest improvements in legal education. If it will make my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) happier, I will tell him that I have never contended that the present system is beyond improvement. I have spent virtually my adult life pointing out the contrary. I go further. Perhaps lawyers are sometimes a little reluctant to learn of other disciplines. But the legal profession is not alone in that. If I may put that marker down on behalf of my profession, I am content.
I assure the House that it is intended that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State shall take this amendment seriously, but I hope I can assure the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) that he will not take it irresponsibly.
The Law Society itself is not unaware of the matters we have been discussing. I am sure that it will take account of what has been said in the debate, so possibly it will not require directions from the Secretary of State before making appropriate consultations.
I am not sure whether the hon. and learned Member wished me to give any more specific undertakings than that. I

cannot list specific persons or bodies the Secretary of State either will or will not direct the Law Society to consult. Certainly the intention is that these directions shall be confined to persons or bodies which are relevant to the education and training of persons seeking to be admitted as solicitors.
In reply in particular to my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, I agree that many people, particularly the kind of people he and I represent, are reluctant to consult solicitors. That is a great tragedy because they are the very people who often require to consult solicitors. One of the things I would like to achieve, if possible in the lifetime of this Government, is the kind of people we represent being much more prepared to take advice as to their rights and how to assert them. It would be a pity if anything were said tonight which might discourage that.

Mr. Cryer: I should make it clear that, although I am very critical, I regard solicitors as providing a very valuable and important service to the community.

The Solicitor-General: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The truth is that, as the hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) and the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon said, many solicitors come from the same background as my hon. Friend and I come from. It is true of members of the Bar as well. I come from a working-class background. There are many solicitors who have not found an impenetrable barrier in moving from a working-class background into the profession.
I think that it would be a pity if anything said tonight caused those I would call for want of a better expression "workingclass people" to feel more distrust of the legal profession than they do now. There have been occasions in the past when they had reason for suspicion, but for the most part now the solicitors' profession is able and willing to lend them the kind of help they need, and if any one message goes out from this debate I hope it will be that they will be well advised to avail themselves of that help.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 14, leave out duties 'and insert reciprocal duties and responsibilities'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we are to take Amendment No. 3, in
page 2, line 17, after regulations ', insert 'or undergoing such education or training; and'
and Amendment No. 4, in
page 2, line 21, leave out from `terminated' to end of sub-paragraph (vi).

The Solicitor-General: These amendments carry a little further some of the problems mentioned in the previous debate. Neither the Law Society nor the Government—nor, indeed, anyone else, so far as I am aware—desire the regulations to go wider than is necessary for the purpose. That entails at least two propositions: first, that they shall not attempt to regulate what happens in universities and polytechnics; second, that they shall not attempt to regulate the conduct of students or teachers in matters which are irrelevant to their admission as solicitors. But for the present they require to regulate the relationship of those giving and those taking articles, and they require to regulate the institutions which at present are under the control of the Law Society.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) moved an amendment in Committee, and these amendments are based on adaptations of that amendment. Their purpose is to delete subsection 2(a)(vi) of the new Section 2A, and deal with the overlap between that subsection and subsection 2(a)(iv) by amending the latter. In particular, these amendments remove the reference to "standards of conduct"—which was the burden of my hon. Friend's contribution in Committee.
I hope that the House will accept that the Law Society is not likely to abuse its powers even if these restrictions are not contained in the Bill. But I agree that it is probably better to restrict the powers in the Bill, provided that we do not find that we have defeated the whole object of the exercise by making them too restrictive.
It may be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West agrees and you permit it, if I say something now about Amendment No. 10, which I think my hon. Friend proposes to move.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does the House wish to take Amendment No. 10? I am quite agreeable to that. Mr. Price.

Mr. Christopher Price: I should be happy for that to be done, Mr. Deputy Speaker—except that I should make it clear that the wording of Amendment No. 10—in page 2, line 38, at end insert:
'Provided that nothing in the training regulations made under this section shall apply to teachers and students at universities or other educational institutions, other than those institutions under the direct control of the society'—
which I wanted to move after consultation, is not exactly as printed on the amendment paper. I should like to comment on that matter at the appropriate stage. I understand that consultations have taken place.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: There is no reason why the hon. Gentleman should not state the case for his amendment if it is felt that it goes along with this group of amendments.

Mr. Christopher Price: I do not wish to do so as an intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps the Solicitor-General should finish his remarks first.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I understood that the Solicitor-General was asking whether we could take Amendment No. 10 with Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4.

Mr. Christopher Price: I agree to that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The Solicitor-General: Perhaps I may comment at this stage on Amendment No. 10. That may assist my hon. Friend later. I am sorry that I did not have an opportunity of consulting him on this proposal.
As I understand it, it is intended to impose a slight further restriction on the powers of the Law Society to make these regulations. I do not think that we are in disagreement about its essential purpose. It may at present—though I understand


that my hon. Friend may wish to move his amendment with slightly differing wording—go wider than any of us would seek to go. That is, first, because we have to bear in mind that there may be a need to prescribe a period for which candidates for admission should undergo their training. Secondly, there might be a need to exercise a control over students if they are undergoing a course while they are in articles. Even the Ormrod Committee had it fairly clearly in mind that the Law Society would want to exercise a vigorous control over the system of legal education precisely in order to achieve the objects we have been discussing tonight. In the summary of its conclusions, at Recommendation No. 22, it said:
The professional bodies must have a powerful influence over the courses and must be satisfied that they are providing an adequate training.
I am sure that my hon. Friend would not wish to impose a restriction on the Law Society which would prevent it from doing that where it seemed to the Law Society to be necessary.
I say again that there is no intention to intervene in the affairs of the universities and polytechnics. I hope that, in view of what I have been able to say and the Government amendments, my hon. Friend will feel that it is not necessary to pursue his amendment. Obviously I will listen to anything that he says.

11.15 p.m.

Sir Michael Havers: One would have thought that many lawyers would have been present for the debate on the Solicitors (Amendment) Bill. However, this appears to be a subsidiary branch of a teachers' seminar.
I do not understand the anxieties. I should have thought that all the arrangements being covered in Clause 2 could be dealt with by a condition precedent in training regulations. However, if the anxieties exist, and if my construction of the clause is wrong, by all means let us have any anxieties and doubts removed. The words are clear. If anxieties exist, let us seek to set them at rest, because I do believe that the Law Society and those who drafted the Bill intended that, for example, university dons should be subject to any control by the Law Society. I as a lawyer looking at it from a construc-

tion point of view, do not believe that it is necessary, but I would not oppose it.

Mr. Christopher Price: It is important that we are having this debate, because it became clear in Committee that many of the ramifications of these subsections have not been properly thought out. In the light of developments, that will take place as the various recommendations of the Ormrod Committee are put into effect. As my hon. and learned Friend said in Committee, we do not know at what pace or in which directions developments will proceed. It is already clear that, arising from the committee's recommendations, an increasing number of solicitors will do more and more of their training in educational institutions rather than under article. That was the burden on one half of the Ormrod Committee's recommendations.
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for tabling the Government amendments. Even if the Ormrod Committee had not reported and there was no question of universities and polytechnics being more involved, these are proper amendments. I am not sure that a body like the Law Society should properly concern itself with standards of conduct of teachers and students. It has strict control over the entry point into the profession, in terms of conduct and examinations. That a body like the Law Society should wish to go beyond that and regulate standards of conduct of teachers and students marks these teachers and students off from other teachers and students. The House will agree that it is proper that we should accord to all teachers and students much the same rights to be regulated by their education institutionals and not by professional organisations such as the Law Society. I therefore welcome the amendments.
But the situation is complicated somewhat by the fact that these subsections are trying to give the Law Society control, first, over the relationship between articled solicitors and solicitors who are responsible for their training, and, secondly, over those institutions over which the Law Society has absolute direct control. The difficulty is that it does not say so in the Bill. The implication is that it should be the responsibility of the Law Society in making training regulations to make regulations which affect teachers and students at other institutions. My


hon. and learned Friend asks me to accept the assurance that the Law Society would not dream of interfering with the rights of students and teachers at universities and polytechnics. I am not happy to do that at the moment.
I turn now to my Amendment No. 10, which we are also discussing. Because of the printing difficulties it has not appeared in quite the form I should have liked. It should read
Provided that nothing in the training regulations made under subsection 2(a)(iv) and (v) of this section shall apply to teachers and students at universities or other educational institutions, other than those institutions under the direct control of the Society.
The first three subsections refer either to education generally or to examinations and tests and to the situation where the Law Society's training regulations quite properly impinge on the activities of universities and polytechnics. The Law Society might wish to state, quite properly, that examinations and tests over which certain universities and polytechnics have control shall be acceptable to it, and will qualify a student to exemption from certain parts of its courses. That is perfectly proper and is done by other organisations. But paragraphs (iv) and (v), which should not apply to students and teachers at universities and polytechnics, refer to qualifications and, if we accept my hon. and learned Friend's amendments, all persons undertaking to undergo training for the purposes of the regulations. They then deal with the situation in which articles might be discharged or education or training under the regulations might be terminated. That is all very well at the Law Society's institutions, but as a result of Ormrod the education of more and more solicitors will take place in universities and polytechnics where there are well-established procedures for the termination of students' courses and for the approval of the qualifications and reciprocal duties and responsibilities of students and teachers. It is improper for a professional body such as the Law Society to enter into this sphere.
It is particularly important that we get the matter straight now, because there is a certain amount of difficulty over the relationship between professional bodies and universities and polytechnics. The professional bodies are more and more trying to use the universities to provide

exemption examinations for their own purposes, and in that way exerting subtle pressure on our educational institutions to provide courses which have less education and rather more training in them, and to divert universities and other educational institutions such as polytechnics and technical colleges from designing balanced courses, as they think fit, to designing courses to the specific recipe of the professional associations. That is wrong. Our educational institutions should design educational courses.
My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General says that it would be unthinkable that the Law Society should seek to interfere with students or teachers at universities or polytechnics, but I am not sure that it is as easy as that. We mentioned many times in Committee that we are in an experimental period, with Ormrod and various versions of Ormrod. We also said many times that we must get the matter right in the Bill. We shall not have another such measure, because later in the Bill we give the Law Society the right to raise its own fees when it likes, without having to come to the House whenever it wishes to do so.
We might have a situation in which quite a number of solicitors undergoing training are at one and the same time articled and students at universities and polytechnics. We need something in the Bill to make it absolutely clear that, although the Law Society has every right to regulate the situation between an articled clerk and his seniors in the profession, it has no right, having perhaps exercised some jurisdiction and attempted either to impose discipline upon the student or the solicitor in charge of him, then to tell that educational institution where that student may be "We do not want this young man to be a solicitor any more, so throw him off your course." Under the present wording, it seems to have a right to do that, because the Bill makes no distinction between the society's educational institutions, over which it is proper for it to have control, and the vast majority of other educational institutions in which solicitors will be trained, where it is improper for the society to have any legal control.
It would subvert the whole delicate balance of disciplinary functions and agreements that have grown up in our universities and polytechnics over the years if


suddenly the House were to say "All students are equal, except law students who have said that they wish to be solicitors, in which case they have a double jeopardy hanging over them—the first being the disciplinary functions of the university and the second being the disciplinary functions of their future professional association, the Law Society."
I am not sure that I am inclined to accept the second-hand assurance—I do not say that in any derogatory sense—of my hon. and learned Friend. Of course, the Law Society would not dream of trespassing upon this territory, but I am afraid that that is what we are giving it permission to do in the Bill. Although we have grouped my amendment with the three amendments of my hon. and learned Friend, and although I thank my hon. and learned Friend for the work that he has put into his amendments as a result of the amendment I tabled in Committee, I do not think that the job is finished until we make the position clear in black and white. For that reason I stand as yet unconvinced that Amendment No. 10 is not a necessary part of the Bill so that it is made crystal clear where the Law Society's route runs and where it does not.

11.30 p.m.

The Solicitor-General: I do not wish to speak in these debates more than is necessary, but I propose to indicate to my hon. Friend through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the way in which my mind is working in response to what he has said. I had hoped that I had gone a long way towards meeting the points that he raised, and he has been kind enough to say that that is so. Obviously there is a problem when part of the professional qualifications of entrants to any profession are obtained at a university or polytechnic since the university and the professional body have a common interest in what happens in the course.
If the Law Society is to accept a particular university course as part of the qualifications for admission to the solicitors' profession, it would not be unreasonable for it to discuss with the university the type of course that it has in mind and some of the matters that it wants taught. Of course, neither the Law Society nor the university has power at the moment—and I would not have

thought that they should have—to direct the other on such matters. What is important is that where we are feeling our way towards a new kind of entrance qualification—

Mr. Christopher Price: If my hon. and learned Friend thinks about his statement relating to examinations he will realise that technically he is wrong. As I understand it, the university has absolute autonomy, if it wishes to exercise it, over the courses that it puts forward. If it puts forward courses which the Law Society feels do not come up to the sort of standards that it has in mind, it will stand in jeopardy of running courses for solicitors which the professional association of solicitors does not accept. It is important to get it straight that the university has responsibility for its courses and that it has autonomy in putting them forward. It may consult a professional body, but it is in no sense an equal partnership. The university has the initiative and the autonomy remains with the educational institution.

The Solicitor-General: I accept that. It would be open to a university to say that it was not going to run any law courses, or a university might decide to run courses which did not meet with the disapprobation of the Law Society. If it did, it might be that it would not have many candidates seeking to take its courses. I would have hoped that there could be a relationship of colleagues and friends seeking a common objective and not of one body or the other seeking to impose its will on the other. The worst that could happen is that in the end they would part company and that part of the training would never be adequately covered.
My hon. Friend said that it would be undesirable for the Law Society to say to a university that a certain candidate should not be permitted to complete his course. Again that is right. But it might be wise for the Law Society to say to both the candidate and the university authorities that for whatever reason, and assuming for the moment that there were good reasons, "We have decided that this person should not be admitted as a solicitor." If he completes his course, he still will not be admitted as a solicitor. Both he and the university might reflect whether it is worse for the final result to come when he has completed the course.


That is the kind of relationship that I would hope would develop. That being so, I would have hoped that we would not impose restrictions in the Bill on this kind of relationship.
I do not think it is imposing a restriction to say that the Law Society shall be empowered to make regulations which, for example, govern law students in certain respects. It may be that if my hon. Friend and I had all the time in the world we could together work out a somewhat complicated formula which, we would hope, met all the situations that were likely to arise. We do not have that time. When my hon. Friend says that ever debate, perhaps that is so. I certainly hope that it is not the last debate of this kind that we ever have. I shall do my this is the last Bill of this kind we will best to ensure that it is not.

Sir Michael Havers: I have a little concern about the circumstances that the hon. and learned Gentleman envisages where the Law Society may say to the university "This is not the sort of student we want". I have looked carefully at Clause 2. If the Solicitor-General is saying that because, since he was admitted as a student at the university or polytechnic, a person has been convicted of a serious criminal offence and therefore would not be admitted, I understand. It cannot, however, be any circumstances of educational qualifications that the hon. and learned Gentleman is speaking of. He should make that clear.

The Solicitor-General: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. If I failed to make that clear, I am obliged to him for assisting me to do so. I had precisely that situation in mind, certainly not that the person's academic standards were inadequate.

Mr. Christopher Price: I understand both situations. It is my view that even if there was an offence which the Law Society felt disqualified the student from being a solicitor and the university perhaps took a different view, it would be absolutely improper at that stage for the Law Society to intervene. May I put it this way. Can the Solicitor-General name any other professional association which takes upon itself this responsibility of reflecting on students while in statu pupillari, as it were?

The Solicitor-General: I would have thought that the answer was "Every profession". Certainly the Institute of Chartered Accountants expects—

Sir Michael Havers: The Bar.

The Solicitor-General: The hon. and learned Gentleman says "The Bar". That is probably true too.

Mr. Christopher Price: I do not want this to become a Tweedledum-Tweedledee act.

Mr. Cryer: It is.

Mr. Price: The Bar is in a slightly different position because people tend to do their degrees first. All I am saying is that in the circumstances of Ormrod, while people are leading up to an educational qualification I know of no professional association that intervenes at that point. Bodies will certainly intervene later and disbar the individual from their qualification, but to intervene halfway through a course, as it were, seems to me to be quite improper.

The Solicitor-General: Certainly it would not be unknown for the Inns of Court to say of a particular candidate halfway through his university course "He will cease to be a student at this Inn" for whatever reasons might seem to be good to them. That would be a sensible and merciful course to take. To keep silent until, in the expectation of being admitted to a profession, the student had completed his course and then to tell him that he would not be admitted would be cruel. For that reason it seems to me that, so far from being improper, it would be absolutely the proper thing for the Law Society to do in that kind of situation.
It seems that my hon. Friend and I may not be wholly at one in what would be an appropriate action for the Law Society to take. That is an additional reason for thinking that we should not too readily seek to circumscribe its powers. The relationship at this stage is rather delicate, but it will develop. We shall all learn in the course of its development, and if I can assist in ensuring that there are further debates in the House on the subject as and when appears necessary, I shall certainly do so.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 3, in page 2 line 17, after "regulations", insert
'or undergoing such education or training; and'.

No. 4, in page 2, line 21, leave out from "terminated" to end of subparagraph (vi)—[The Solicitor-General.].

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Amendment No. 5.

Mr. Christopher Price: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I agreed that my Amendment No. 10 should be taken with Amendment No. 2, but does that mean that the Question will not be put on Amendment No. 10?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may have his amendment put to the House, by all means, if the House agrees to the alteration in the wording suggested by him.

Amendment proposed: No. 10 in page 2, line 38, at end insert—
Provided that nothing in the training regulations made under this subsection 2(a)(iv) and (v) of this section shall apply to teachers and students at universities or other educational institutions, other than those institutions under the direct control of the society".—[Mr. Christopher Price].

Amendment negatived.

Clause 7

LAY OBSERVERS

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 4, line 33, at end insert
 and shall publish any such directions".
The proposal is that the Lord Chancellor shall publish general directions to the lay observers under the new Section 28A. Assurances were given in Committee that those directions would be published, and the purpose of the amendment is to turn those assurances into a statutory provision. It was always intended that the directions should be made public. The whole exercise is intended to protect the public, and it is essential that the public should know the nature of the directions. There seems to be no reason why that requirement should not be in the Bill.

Sir Michael Havers: I hope that the directions will contain no nonsense

about the number of departmental staff, electric fires or cups of tea but that they will be focused on the duties of the lay observer and not on small administrative matters about which the Lord Chancellor may direct but which should not be included in the published directions.

The Solicitor-General: For this purpose we might distinguish between directions and administrative requirements. The directions concerned are those which relate to the protection of the public by the lay observers.

Amendment agreed to.

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 4, line 48, at end insert—
'(9) The Society shall furnish a lay observer with such information as he may from time to time reasonably require.
(10) The Lord Chancellor shall direct the submission to him of annual reports by lay observers on the discharge of the functions conferred on them by this section.
(11) The Lord Chancellor shall lay a copy of any report under subsection (10) above before each House of Parliament'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we are taking sub-Amendment (a) to Amendment No. 6, at end of subsection (9), insert
'including any information that the Society may be capable of obtaining from any person'.

The Solicitor-General: The amendment has two purposes. First it provides that the Law Society shall furnish the lay observer with such information as he may require. It might be helpful to remind ourselves that his function is not to sit on appeal from the Law Society. The purpose of the lay observer is to assess the way in which the Law Society has handled a complaint and, having done so, to elaborate on that to the Lord Chancellor. The lay observer's report will be published, and he may also conclude in relation to any complaint that there should be a referral to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal. He might make that reference himself or he might recommend the complainant to do so. Obviously it is helpful that he should see the information which was before the Law Society in order to decide how the complaint should have been handled.
11.45 p.m.
But the amendment goes further. It includes what I think is the real purpose behind the sub-amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), whom we are delighted to see back among us, albeit belatedly. The lay observer may take the view that the Law Society should have asked for further information. It was pointed out in Committee that as a natural consequence of that view one should be able to say "Please ask for that information now, and we will see where it would have led and where it in fact leads."
The Law Society does not have wide powers to demand information of a solicitor. If it were thought that he was withholding information unreasonably, it could presumably decline to renew his practising certificate or it could in extreme cases take the view that the actual withholding of information amounted to misconduct. It is not likely that the Law Society would be unco-operative if the lay observer asked for information. The Law Society has no intention of being unco-operative. And if it was unco-operative it would be open to the lay observer to say so, and presumably to say so very damagingly, in his report. It is useful to include this provision in the Bill.
There is no dispute about what I understand to be the intention of my hon. Friend's sub-amendment. I must not anticipate what he will say. It is not intended that my amendment should be limited to information in the possession of the Law Society at the time of asking. I turn now to the other part of the amendment relating to the report of the lay observer.
My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor said in the House of Lords that the intention was that the lay observer should make annual reports and that those annual reports should be published. Clearly the public should know how their representative had been proceeding and what he had found.
In Committee the question arose whether we should ensure opportunities from time to time for the House to debate the affairs of the legal profession. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham,

West (Mr. Price) referred to that during the course of the earlier debate. If the annual report is laid before Parliament, that will be one method of ensuring that there is such an opportunity. In time we may evolve other methods. This may be a useful beginning.
Subsection (10) of the amendment deals with annual reports. We must distinguish them from reports on individual cases. It is not intended that those should normally be published. Normally they will concern only the complainant and the solicitor. It is a distinction which, as my hon. Friend pointed out in Committee, is observed in the case of the Parliamentary Commissioner. There may of course be occasions when the lay observer might wish to make special reports. My noble Friend is considering how to deal with that situation in his directions. The Committee accepted this.
Finally, I come to the reason why the proposed subsection (10) is drafted in its present form. It may be found desirable as our experience proceeds to appoint more than one lay observer. This is an experiment. Time will tell. If it is desirable to appoint more lay observers, it may not be inconvenient for each of the several lay observers to present his own separate annual report. The purpose of this wording is to ensure that my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor will have an opportunity, if that situation arises, of considering what is the most convenient form of ensuring that there is an annual report or reports from the lay observers.
We are feeling our way. Our thinking on all this has developed as the discussions on the Bill proceeded. I hope, however, that the amendment will serve to make the proposal for the lay observer more effective.

Sir Michael Havers: I am not altogether clear what the Solicitor-General is saying about special reports. I do not foresee that these will be required very often. I can, however, foresee the occasion when there will be something occurring which the lay observer will feel should be brought to the notice of the Lord Chancellor and, if necessary, to the House before the 12 months are up. I hope that it can be covered within the direction which the Lord Chancellor will publish. If so, I shall be satisfied.
I hope that it is in order to comment on the welcome arrival of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). He is not often to be seen with his hands tied behind his back, or in front of him as they are at present. We hope that he is not too badly injured. The fact remains, however, that the hon. Gentleman's sub-amendment is totally unnecessary on the wording already contained in the clause.

Mr. Michael English: I begin by expressing my gratitude to two of my hon. Friends. I gather that my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. Hughes) endeavoured to move my new Clause 1 and that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) was prepared to speak to my sub-amendment to this amendment had I not got back in time from another place. I also thank my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) for their remarks. I can assure them that my tongue has not sustained a fracture and that any other fracture is minor.
I accept the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon about my amendment. Its object was to find out.
The Solicitor-General said that the Law Society has not any very great powers to obtain information from solicitors. But we are dealing with legislation, and it is not sufficient to say that the Law Society does not have powers. All our arguments over three years have been directed to ensuring that the Law Society deals with clients' complaints. If the Law Society felt at any time that it had not sufficient powers to do that, I can personally assure its representatives that such a Bill would go through with a speed that they might not expect in comparison with this one.
The whole tendency of society at the moment is to assist in dealing with these matters. If the Law Society is lacking any power, I hope that it will not simply say that but will recognise that there are hon. Members only too willing to give it powers to investigate clients' complaints.
I tabled the sub-amendment to ensure also that the lay observer cannot be met with the answer from the Law Society "You can require information from us, but we cannot tell you about information

from a solicitor which may be related to the confidentiality applying between solicitor and client." Usually that can be got round. Normally the client is the complainant, and he will waive his privilege. On occasions, however, more than one party is involved, and difficulties may arise.
I tabled my amendment so that the Solicitor-General would have an opportunity to say that the lay observer not only can get information from the Law Society but can get information which the Law Society can get from solicitors. In practice it is often obtained without any legal powers because of the long-stop power of removing a practising certificate. So long as it can be done, I hope that the lay observer can also get it done if necessary.

Mr. Christopher Price: I welcome the amendment as one of a number of amendments which I think my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) would agree would not have been moved on Report had it not been for the activities of a small and sometimes irritable group behind him in Committee.
It is particularly important that we should strengthen, as I believe we have done, the powers of the lay observer. I recognise that the lay observer is in no sense a court of appeal against the activities of the Law Society. Nevertheless accusations against the Law Society in its investigations sometimes concern not only a refusal properly to investigate but a determination only partially to investigate a matter.
I was recently concerned with a case in which the Law Society threw all its weight against one partner in a firm of solicitors and steadfastly refused to throw any of its weight against the other two partners.
If the lay observer comes across such a case, I think that the amendment we are introducing—the clause would be strengthened even more if the sub-amendment were accepted too—will give him the necessary power, which I hope will never have to be used, because the Law Society, knowing that it is there in the background, will be kept on its toes to carry out its investigations in a fuller and more fearless manner than if the long-stop power of the lay observer did not exist.
I hope that the lay observer, although not a court of appeal, will regard himself as a tough cookie, as it were, and will be willing, with whatever resources the Government may give him—I hope that they will not be meagre resources—to take on the full might and determination of the Law Society if he thinks it is the right course to take. The arming of the lay observer with these powers should ensure that the Law Society carries out its duties and responsibilities rather more comprehensively than in the past.

The Solicitor-General: The intention is that the lay observer shall be effective. That is what the Bill is about. I believe that he will be more effective in consequence of our discussions in Committee.
It may be because of the lateness of the hour, or perhaps I am more than usually inarticulate tonight, but I intended to convey what the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) understood to be the intention—namely, that my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor will deal in his directions with the situation which may arise from time to time where the lay observer wishes to make a special report under the directions which my noble Friend will be making.
I turn now to the point which concerns my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). It would be unfair to mislead anyone into believing that the Law Society now has extensive statutory powers to require the production of information from solicitors. However, it would be unusual and in most cases unwise for a solicitor to refuse to give information for which he had been asked.
I think that in normal circumstances the Law Society would not require to come back to the House and ask for additional powers. The intention, as my hon. Friend said, is that the lay observer will be able to ask not only for information which the Law Society has at the time but for information which it could obtain if it asked for it.

12 midnight.

Mr. English: I hope my hon. and learned Friend will agree with my political judgment that if the Law Society ever sought additional powers on this subject the House would be willing to grant them.

The Solicitor-General: I find that it becomes increasingly dangerous to predict anything about proceedings in this House, which consists of a number or hon. Members who have minds of their own. In so far as one can predict anything, however, I agree with my hon. Friend's prediction.
My hon. Friend also asked about the situation which might arise if the requirement of information entailed a breach of professional confidence between solicitor and client. As my hon. Friend said, this difficulty would not normally arise because the complainant would be the client, but there could be situations in which the difficulty arises.
I hope that either the lay observer or the Law Society will hesitate long before requiring the production of information which has been given by way of professional confidence, because confidence between solicitor and client is an important aspect of the service that a solicitor can give to the public. If the matter were pressed, and if it became a serious conflict between the interests of the complainant and the privilege of the client, presumably a court would have to decide whether the requirement of the lay observer was reasonable. I must in fairness point out that what is proposed is that the Law Society should disclose what the lay observer "reasonably requires", and in the last resort it could be that a court would have to decide whether his requirement was reasonable. I do not think I can give more precise guidance than that.

Mr. English: Does my hon. and learned Friend, using his professional judgment, consider that the words "reasonably require" are wide enough to cover privileged information if the request is otherwise reasonable?

The Solicitor-General: That is a matter which I have not had an opportunity to consider at length, but if I have occasion later to revise what I say now I shall write to my hon. Friend. I think that a court would, in appropriate circumstances, be entitled to override the privilege of the client. It would be a matter for the court to decide whether, in all the circumstances, it was justifiable so to do.
I have done my best to answer my hon. Friend's questions, and in those


circumstances he may not wish to proceed with his alteration to my amendment.

Mr. English: I do not.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 11

THE SOLICITORS DISCIPLINARY TRIBUNAL

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 8, line 12, leave out 'under' and insert
'made by virtue of any provision of'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we are to take Amendment No. 7, in page 8, line 15 at end insert
'; but nothing in this subsection shall be deemed to prevent the Law Society investigating complaints of any character prior to the submission of such complaints to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal or a court should such submission eventually prove necessary or desirable.'

The Solicitor-General: It may assist the House if I refer first to my hon. Friend's amendment, which is No. 7. I hope that it will not be thought presumptuous if I attempted to anticipate my hon. Friend's arguments.
As I understand it, my hon. Friend wishes to ensure that the Law Society can investigate the treatment of complaints even if the complaint is not of a kind likely to lead to proceedings before the Disciplinary Tribunal. The answer is that the Law Society can make that investigation. There is nothing in the Bill or in the existing legislation to confine the Law Society's right to investigate to any one class of complaint.
It has been normal in the past for the Law Society to investigate complaints which, prima facie, are within the jurisdiction of what is now the Disciplinary Committee and what in future will be the Disciplinary Tribunal, and normally where there is no sanction by the committee or the tribunal and the remedy lies in the court it has not been thought right by the Law Society to intervene in the matter, but that is not invariable.
There have been occasions—for example, when there have been complaints of delay or something of that kind which may not amount to misconduct—on which the Law Society has decided to intervene.
It follows that if, in the case of any complaint, the Law Society decides to take no action the lay observer may say publicly 'In this case it ought to have taken action." If experience suggests that in the view of the lay observer the Society should extend the categories of complaint in which it acts, clearly great weight would be given to that view.
Obviously with its present resources it could not undertake an open-ended commitment to investigate every complaint. I hope my hon. Friend will accept that his amendment is unnecessary in the sense I have attempted to describe. If my hon. Friend is troubled by the words
complaints under this Act
perhaps I should explain that they were not intended to cover all complaints which might be made to the Law Society. The words refer to complaints in the technical sense, which the 1957 Act authorises to be made, and where that Act prescribes a statutory procedure for dealing with them.
It occurred to us in considering what my hon. Friend apparently had in mind that it would be helpful to make it clear that what was intended was a complaint by virtue of the Act. Complaints by the public to the Law Society are not by virtue of any provision in the Act. A member of the public does not require statutory authority to write to the Law Society. These words would not normally include complaints of negligence nor, to use the expression used by my hon. Friend in Committee, cases of a solicitor having made a mistake. That would be a complaint in a non-technical sense. It would be open to the Law Society to investigate any of those if it thought it proper, and where it does not, it would be open to the lay observer to say that in his opinion it should. Amendment 11 is designed to spell out the kind of complaint we have in mind in this clause.

Mr. English: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. In his usual admirable way, in this upside-down debate, he seems to be answering my points before I have made them. His answer was substantially satisfied me. I tabled this amendment virtually as a probing amendment. Like my hon. and learned Friend, I can understand that the Law


Society has not got the resources to deal with all the complaints that pour in. My solution would be to take some of the burden off the Society and place it on the Exchequer, as we have done in the Bill by making the lay observer a charge on the Exchequer.
There was a further problem; namely that solicitors were a bit resistant to dealing with claims of negligence because they were unable to insure themselves in all cases. That, again, has been dealt with in the Bill. I hope, now that some of these stumbling blocks have been taken away, that bit by bit over the next few years we shall be able to persuade the Law Society that, where there is a case of a solicitor having made a mistake, there is no crime or sin in saying so and delicately suggesting that he might pay the client, out of his insurance, some losses which may have been incurred, if it is fairly clear and serious and within the resources of the Society to investigate.
I tabled this amendment because I did not want anyone to say that Clause 11 contradicts the other clause. It did have the phrase.
all complaints under this Act
whereas the lay observer is entitled to deal with any complaint of whatever nature. I sensed a possible conflict, and I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend has explained that it does not really exist. I of course take his word for that.
I did not want the wording to make the Law Society feel that it did not have the power to investigate a complaint of a mistake. It may not be able to deal with them all, but I did not want the difficulty to be a legal one as well as a question of resources. If my hon. Friend assures me that my amendment is not necessary I am happy to accept his assurance and will not be moving it.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 19

CITATION, ETC.

Amendments made:

No. 8, in page 13, line 43, leave out '(3), and 34' and insert '34(1) and'.

No. 9, in page 14, line 1, after '33', insert '(1)'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

12.12 a.m.

Mr. English: I do not want to detain the House, but when this is the fourth Bill in a series which has extended over three Sessions and more than one Parliament, something should be said as it reaches its last stage.
The story illustrates some of the virtues of the House. When the first Bill, a Private Member's Bill, came forward, some of us, including not only my hon. Friends who have been here tonight but also my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, lichen (Mr. Mitchell) and Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), thought that it should deal also with complaints against solicitors by members of the public. There are more complaints against 20,000 solicitors than there are to the Ombudsman against the whole Civil Service. I do not suggest that they are all justified, but their very number shows the feeling in the country.
On the first Bill, I regret to say that the Law Society thought that consultation with Governments was sufficient and that consultation with back benchers was unnecessary. On the second Bill, the first having fallen by the wayside, the Law Society agreed to consult us. Although it did not adopt some of our suggestions then, I am grateful to the Law Society for adopting them on the third Bill and on this one, the fourth.
The third and fourth Bills were Government Bills. Members of the previous Government, including the former Solicitor-General, will know that we had considerable discussions with them on the third one. Now the Government have changed, but the arguments remain the same, and slowly but surely we have achieved the insurance provision which is vital.
It was not wholly the fault of solicitors that they were not insured against complaints of negligence. Part of the difficulty, I understood from the Law Society, was a difficulty with the insurers. Now there is a clear statement that the Law Society can require solicitors to be insured. They may do it generally or in particular, and as a safeguard to make sure that the insurers do it they can theoretically do it themselves, if only to make sure that the


insurance companies will not let them. This is vital. We also have the lay observer. I persist in calling him, somewhat to the dislike of certain hon. Members, a sort of Ombudsman because, in my view, that is what he is, even if he is an Ombudsman of second rather than first instance.
I am extremely grateful in particular to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. I am sure that his tact and helpfulness in Committee and behind the scenes have ensured that the Bill—the fourth of its line—will be passed. I am also grateful to the fact that the Law Society eventually over a long period of time took many of the points which were made. I hope that on future occasions it will try to react a little more speedily.
It must be said that there are many people in this day and age who are going to consult solicitors for the first time. They are young people, for example, buying a house for the first time or—although one hopes not—seeking a divorce. They go to a solicitor for the first time and sometimes have difficulties because they happen to find a poor one.
The other thing I would like to persuade the profession to do is not to regard a mistake as a crime or a sin. We all make mistakes, but there is one thing that we can all do about mistakes—that is, if we make a mistake which causes someone to lose money and we are insured against such an eventuality, we can pay them compensation for the financial loss which we have, probably unintentionally, caused them.
I suggest to the Law Society that it must think carefully about this issue of what is technically termed "negligence" but which is not the word I prefer to use, for a variety of reasons, and think carefully about how it can encourage the profession to take the attitude that everyone may make a mistake but that we can sometimes do something to put right the results.
I think I have said enough at this time of night. I hope that the Bill will soon receive the Royal Assent after all the delay which has occurred.

12.18 a.m.

Sir Michael Havers: As a one-time parent of this Bill suddenly, by some

incestuous method on 28th February, translated, by a stroke of the pen by the electors, into a grandparent, I am delighted that it has reached this stage. It has been a nightmare to my successor, I am sure, and it certainly was to me as Solicitor-General.
Two earlier such Bills were stopped by hon. Members' objections. The third was stopped almost in mid-air last autumn, and now the fourth is really to become law. I wish it well, and I hope that the improvements which have been built into the Bill over the many discussions of the last three years will be welcomed not only by the solicitors' profession but by the public at large.

12.19 a.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I hope that my intervention in the debate will be understood. I can claim no legal training nor any basically academic training other than that normally provided for young people. But I am here tonight representing constituents who have written to me about this Bill.
I refer particularly to Clause 6, which deals with the fee payable on the issue of a practising certificate. The hon. and learned Solicitor-General may have expected some mention of Clause 6 during the remaining stages of the Bill. I am reliably informed that many solicitors have written to professional journals expressing severe criticism of the clause. Many of them have gone as far as demanding its total removal from the Bill. It seems to many of them that this clause is analogous to a club committee seeking power to increase subscriptions without limit and to expand funds without the ordinary members of that club having any say in the matter.
The situation is further aggravated by the fact that payment of the subscription—I refer to the fee for a practising certificate—is compulsory if one wishes to practise, and that for all practical purposes there is no available alternative of resignation.
Motions have been submitted to the Law Society by a number of solicitors. I believe that the Law Society's annual general meeting takes place later today. One of the motions submitted states:
The Law Society having noted the provisions of Clause 6 of the Solicitors (Amendment Bill [H.L.] printed on the 9th April


1974 which would permit of such fee as the Master of the Rolls with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice may from time to time determine in lieu of the present maximum fee of £20, considering that the existing law provides for a fee not exceeding £20 which is to be applied in such manner and to such extent as the Society might think fit for the purposes of the Society including the facilitating of the acquisition of legal knowledge and considering the existing total fees for the year ended 31st December 1972 amounted to a sum of £548,082 decides:

(a) that the Society rejects the provision for an unlimited practising certificate fee which could be applied for any purposes of the Society and that a stated maximum fee be specified;
(b) that the Society do everything in its power to bring about amendments to give effect to the provisions of paragraph (a) instructs the Council of the Society to adopt this decision and put it into effect forthwith."
The Council of the Law Society received that notice of motion but has been advised that the motion would be ultra vires and that it would be wholly without effect as directions to the council upon matters delegated to the council under the society's charters.
I have drawn this matter to the attention of the House because I feel concerned, on behalf of my constituents, about the fact that this clause gives certain powers—powers which cannot be questioned by people who are solicitors and wish to practise. It could well be that year by year the Law Society could increase the fee for a practising certificate. In the final stages of this important Bill, this matter should be noted in the House.
It is not my intention to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill. There is a great deal of good in the Bill. It has been quite an experience for me to sit patiently listening to those with far more knowledge of the law that ever I shall have. I believe that the provisions of the Bill will be of considerable benefit. However, I hope that the Solicitor-General will make very clear to my constituents, who are concerned about the provisions of this clause, how these funds are to be applied. If that information and assurance is given, the criticisms of the clause and the opposition to it will be reduced, if not eliminated.

12.25 a.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: Most hon. Members probably regard the Bill as very

much of a time-filler introduced by the Government at the beginning of the Session principally because they could not think of anything else to introduce as they had not prepared their more important Bills. For that reason, many people may write the Bill off as relatively unimportant. I believe that it will be seen as crucial in bringing into being the interface between the professional associations and the education system.
The Bill is a turning point. It is the end of the great bargain which was struck in the nineteenth century between the Government and the great professions. The Government said to the professions "You guarantee respectability, and we will give you monopoly. We will do a straight swap." That has worked well for about 100 years. It is now coming to an end, because in this modest measure Parliament, on behalf of society, is demanding a certain amount of control over the activities of this profession and is for the first time willing to spend some money—very little at first—to ensure that the control works effectively.
I believe that the ombudsman we are setting up over the Law Society in the guise of a lay observer will be the first of many ombudsmen to be appointed by Parliament to oversee the professions which hitherto have thought themselves to be sufficiently great, important and socially responsible—I use that word in a completely neutral sense—not to need any supervision by the community at large.
I would like to see an ombudsman for doctors, one for dentists and one for other professional men. That is why I would have liked the lay observer to have been appointed from within the department of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration rather than the initiative for his appointment resting with the Lord Chancellor. My amendment to secure that result was defeated in Committee.
The Bill marks the beginning of the end of the great elite professions. Parliament's insistence on making regulations for education and training and putting a lay observer over the Law Society will be seen in the future to mark the point where the legal profession, as with many other professions, is thrown more widely open to society at large.
The Solicitor-General gave a pledge in Committee which he has not honoured.


The important thing about the Bill is that, by giving the Lord Chancellor a flexible right to raise the fee for ever and ever, it ensures that we never have any more Bills like this. The Law Society has come to Parliament cap in hand over the years only because it has wanted to raise the fee—it has come for money. We have said "Very well, but put in something about education and a lay observer." There has been a little healthy bargaining. Now the Law Society is off the hook for ever. It need never come back to this House.
My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General promised in Committee that he would consider the point that if the House was to junk its Solicitors (Amendment) Bills, which some of us might think a good thing, it should as a quid pro quo have some mechanism through which it could exercise scrutiny year by year over the solicitors as over other professions.
I suggested a Select Committee on the professions which could exercise consider. able scrutiny. If my hon. and learned Friend feels that such a committee would not be appropriate I should be interested to hear his other suggestions, and I should be interested to hear how any consultations he has had with his colleagues on the point have gone. I do not feel that we can simply wave goodbye to the Law Society as it pushes its ship from Parliament never to return. We want to see it from time to time, and I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will be able to help on this point as he has done on others. I pay tribute to his extreme helpfulness.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the Solicitor-General will not be tempted to wander away at this stage from the exact content of the Bill.

The Solicitor-General: I hope that at this time of night, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall not be tempted to say one word more than I have been asked by hon. Members.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The point of my intervention was that the hon. and learned Gentleman has been invited to go out of order.

The Solicitor-General: I am grateful for your dispensation. Mr. Deputy Speaker.
We are concluding what might transpire to be an episode of some importance. I said on Second Reading that if we were to iron out inequalities in our society and the sense of alienation felt by many of our people, it was essential to let it be known not only that the law was open to all but that the services of the legal profession in relation to advice on that law were equally open to all, and that we should encourage the public to take advice about their rights and responsibilities. That will be done only if the suspicion and hostility which exists towards the legal profession in many sectors, perhaps in the working-class movement generally, are eradicated.
It is essential if the profession is to have a future among its potential clients, and it is essential if those clients are to avail themselves of their rights. That is what the Bill is about. One of the important benefits to emerge from the Bill is protection of the public, and I certainly endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English). I take issue with him on one matter—we have not had many disagreements about questions of fact—because I am a little puzzled about where he got his figure of 20,000 complaints a year to the Law Society. My information is that the number is something less than 5,000 a year including those which are wholly misconceived.

Mr. English: I did not say 20,000 complaints in this debate. I have said it on a previous occasion. I accepted then that the information I had received was wrong. I could go into an explanation of why it was wrong again, but that would only delay the House. In this debate I referred to complaints against about 20,000 solicitors, not 20,000 complaints. There are about 22,000 solicitors in the United Kingdom, I believe. The complaints against them are greater in number as I understand it than the complaints against the whole of the Civil Service, which has far more than 20,000-odd members.

The Solicitor-General: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. At least we do not seem to be in disagreement on the facts.


It is not comparing like with like, however, to compare complaints against solicitors with complaints of maladministration within the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Commissioner. But I wholly agree with most of what my hon. Friend said.
The story of the Bill began when the Law Society found it necessary to increase fees for practising certificates. Had the Law Society not found it necessary, the Bill would never have come before the House. There is no mystery about the reason why the society needed to increase its fees. Inflation is no respecter of persons or institutions. I have received, and I know that the Law Society has received, various representations on the Law Society's financial position. I can assure the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) that I have looked at the matter quite closely. The intention is that any increase in fees will be decided by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls. It will not be at the whim of the Council of the Law Society, even if the council were thought to have whims. I am satisfied that there is a need.
I have had all sorts of possible alternatives suggested to me. It has even been pointed out that the Law Society occupies valuable premises. I think that their value was included in the figure for the reserve fund to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It would not be a solution to the problem to sell the premises from which the whole business is conducted. What is at issue is the uncommitted liquid reserves. It is true that there is now a liquid reserve, but that position is deteriorating and it is estimated that by 1975, if there were no increase, there would be a financial crisis, because the reserves are falling at an alarming rate. It would not help anyone if the Law Society could not fulfil its proper statutory functions on behalf of the public as well as of solicitors.
There has been a great deal of discussion of what part of the expenditure of the Law Society should be met by income from practising certificate fees—that is, from the profession generally—and what proportion should be met from membership fees, which is simply from those members of the profession who choose to join the Law Society. Clearly there is a need to ensure that practising certificate

fees do not bear a disproportionate part of the total expenditure, which is one reason why the matter is decided by the Lord Chancellor and his fellow judges. They have the accounts required by Section 11 of the Act of 1957. They also have the society's accounts, which are laid before the society each year, and they call for such other evidence as they think fit.
I should say in fairness that the two sources of income are not paid into two separate funds but are paid into one fund, and the Law Society has to try from time to time to apportion the expenditure according to which items of expenditure should properly be met from which source. In some cases it is a fairly clear dividing line. Clearly the club facilities, as it were, should be met from membership subscriptions. The expenditure on such matters as professional purposes, education, training, discipline, law reform and discussions on the future of the profession should be borne by the profession as a whole. There are, however, other matters in between where there would be room from debate. It is for that reason that in the past it has not been the practice to publish the apportionment.
I have been shown figures, and the hon. Member may be pleased to know that it is now proposed to publish some of those calculations. It is intended that in this week's Law Society's Gazette there shall be an article by the Treasurer which will show some of them. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman may be able to set the minds of his constituents at rest to that extent.
The Law Society required this legislation. Some of my hon. Friends saw opportunities to discuss the affairs of the profession. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) pointed out, there will not be a precisely similar opportunity again to discuss the affairs of the profession. We spent time in Committee discussing what might be a way of ensuring that the House discussed those affairs from time to time.
It is fair to point out that the fact that there will not be another requirement to increase practising certificate fees does not mean that the Law Society will not require to come before the House again. In the rapidly changing conditions of modern society about which we have been


talking there may be a number of occasions when the society will require to come before the House. It might be helpful if we could build in some constitutional process by which we could ensure that there will be periodical discussions.
One of the matters that we have discussed is the possibility of a Select Committee. I discovered quite a lot about the history of Select Committees in the process of conducting my discussions. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West contributed to a debate in the House on 12th November 1970 when the Green Paper entitled "Select Committees of the House of Commons" was debated. I noted some of the suggestions which my hon. Friend then made. I also made some inquiries into the recommendations of the Select Committee on Procedure that sub-committees be introduced on law and order and public safety. All I can say at the moment is that discussions are continuing. I do not rule out anything, but obviously there are all sorts of difficulties of which my hon. Friends will be aware. You were kind enough to warn me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if I trespassed much further into that matter I should find myself out of order.
I believe that our discussions on the Bill have been helpful. We have been discussing ways of ensuring an element of public participation as well as the protection of the public. From discussions on earlier Bills there emerged proposals which have been included in this Bill. And it has itself changed in the course of our debates. I believe that it has changed for the better.
I believe that both the public and the legal profession have reason to be grateful for the debates we have had and for the suggestions which have been made. My hon. Friends were very kind about the part that I was permitted to play in those debates. I pay tribute to the discussions which we have had, which I believe took place in a constructive and good-tempered atmosphere. I express my gratitude to the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) and his hon. Friends, to my hon. Friends and to the Law Society, which considered what was said readily and helpfully.
The history books may not accord us all our proper deserts, but I believe they

may record that we played a small part in a valuable process. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): If there is no objection, I shall put a single Question on the following groups of motions.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments):

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

That the Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Sugar) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 23rd May, be approved.—[Mr. Golding.]

ELECTRICITY

That the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) (Scotland) Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Golding.]

HORTICULTURE

That the Horticulture (Apple and Pear Growers) (Special Payments) Scheme 1974 (S.I., 1974, No. 1003), a copy of which was laid before this House on 19th June, be approved.—[Mr. Golding.]

Question agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments):

INCOME TAX

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (British Solomon Islands Protectorate) Order 1974 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 18th June.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony) Order 1974 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 18th June.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Seychelles) Order 1974 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 18th June.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Air Transport Undertakings and


their Employees) (Soviet Union) Order 1974 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 18th June.—[Mr. Golding.]

Question agreed to.

Addresses to be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to the Standing Order (Statutory Instruments):

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW

That the Grants to Redundant Churches Fund Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 21st June, be approved.—[Mr. Golding.]

COUNTY COURTS

That the County Courts Jurisdiction Order 1974, a draft of which was laid before this House on 25th June, be approved.—[Mr. Golding.]

Question agreed to.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Golding.]

CENTRAL LANCASHIRE NEW TOWN

12.43 a.m.

Mr. Stan Thorne: Having listened to the previous debate, I become more convinced that law is for the lawyers. Happily, we are now to concern ourselves with a subject that to many people in Central Lancashire is of extreme importance.
I am one of those who believe that democracy is of considerable importance in Britain. There was an argument many years ago about democracy in regard to the ancient Greek States. Plato attacked democracy severely on the ground that it was inefficient. He suggested that we should be better served by accepting that there were within society philosopher kings and guardians who were able to think and suggest ideas which would need only to be followed to create the good life.
I mention that deliberately because today some people describe the philosopher kings as planners. It seems when we consider what is produced by the Central Lancashire Development Cor-

poration and when we become involved in the discussions that arise from the outline plan, we are very much in the situation that what is being said is "We know best, and as long as you accept the sense of what we say we will achieve what is right".
The background to the Central Lancashire development is fairly well known. The North-West is more densely populated than any other part of the country. It is precisely because of this that land is of vital importance, that its use should be planned and that the basic issue with which the Government should be concerned in relation to those plans is people. Arising from people's needs, the questions of housing, jobs, communications, transport and the rest naturally flow.
We are talking of an area of about 35,000 acres including Preston, Chorley, Fulwood and Leyland. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will be able to give opportunity for my hon. Friends the Members for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) and for Chorley (Mr. Rodgers) to participate in the debate. I shall try to ensure that time is allowed for them to do so, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will reply favourably to what is suggested to him.
There is a population of a quarter of a million in the area I am describing. I took the trouble to look up some of the original documents, and I got this quotation from the former Under-Secretary of State for the Environment in June 1972:
Ample opportunity will be given to the public for discussion of the eventual plan.
It is precisely the question of democracy, participation and consultation with which I am vitally concerned in this debate.
The unemployment problems in the North-West are fairly well known. The need for new industry which stems therefrom presents certain problems when one considers the congested character of the Mersey belt. The need, therefore, to spread out within North-East and North-West Lancashire is fairly obvious.
I am quite sure I am speaking on behalf of my colleagues who are present when I say that we are in no way suggesting that the new town development is not something that can bring prosperity and a better way of life to the


people of the area. What we are saying is that against that background there are certain things that should be done in a democracy to ensure that anything of value that is produced should be what people need and what they consider to be of value.
To obtain a consensus within a very large area about what is of value, it seems to me that a whole range of organisations and institutions must be consulted. I am fairly certain that the Central Lancashire Development Corporation has sought consultation with the chamber of commerce in Preston, in Chorley and so on. Other organisations, too, will have been embraced in the consultation. But the list that one could present of organisations that have certainly not been consulted is immense.
The trade unions within the whole of this area, for example, have not been consulted by the development corporation. Neither have the trades councils, the voluntary organisations, residents' associations, ratepayers' associations, women's voluntary services, the family service unit and others. All these are organisations that are vitally concerned with the social and economic structure that exists in the area and is likely to exist with the sort of changes that are envisaged in a development of this character.
Housing in the new town is a central issue. The present Government should already have a policy on the statements made by the Conservative Government about the problem of private and public housing development. The predecessor of the Minister for Planning and Local Government made the categorical statement that he expected the private sector to play a much larger part than it had played previously in new towns. I sought by a Parliamentary Question recently to get the Secretary of State's attitude to that Statement. His reply was unhelpful in that it told me nothing about whether he considered the originally suggested proportion of private to public housing in the area was valid. I am primarily concerned about consultation with the people on the nature of the housing developments.
Roads have already presented immense problems to the community. Although the concept of this new town goes back to

1969, and the board was set up in 1972, the consultation that has taken place is minimal. In Ashton, which is an area that will be affected by the Western Primary, a park that is highly valued by the community will be cut across by the new road, and housing that is valued by the community will be destroyed. A public meeting which was organised by the development corporation after the publication of the outline plan was attended by 350 people. That meeting reflected the immediate concern expressed by people once they know the facts. That concern is exacerbated because the people have not been consulted about the changes. The public rightly ask whether roads are the only means of public transport that the development corporation consider to be viable. Have not the Government a responsibility in guiding the development corporation to consider alternatives, such as light railways, loop lines, and a general improvement in public transport?
Speaking on 3rd February 1971, the Minister for Planning and Local Government said that in planning the new town it was necessary that amenities also should be properly planned. What does "properly" mean? What does "planning" mean? Does it mean that the public will be able to participate? The Labour Government could answer that question only with a firm "Yes." The Labour Party spent much time on disseminating propaganda throughout Britain to explain the value of the Skeffington Report. The recommendations of that report are highly relevant, and the Department of the Environment confirms that it rates them highly even in a new town of this description. One recommendation is that the people should be kept informed throughout the preparation of a plan, and that representations should be considered continuously while the plans are being prepared.
Meetings will be convened to set up community forums. Where there are natural organisations in existence Skeffington draws attention to the need for development organisations to establish community officers whose job it will be to go within the community to get the people interested in the development that is likely to take place; in other words, to encourage and invite them to participate in the preparation of those plans.
Unhappily, those recommendations have not been implemented in the Central Lancashire New Town area. An organisation known as Planwatch has appealed time and time again to the Development Corporation for the opportunity to participate in the preparation of plans. Each time it has been fobbed off with the idea that when the outline plan is complete it will then put it to the public for their consideration. The public should be told what the other recommendation says.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I thought he had invited two of his hon. Friends to speak as well. The Minister has to reply. We have now reached half way.

Mr. Thorne: I was under the impression that I had spoken for about 15 minutes.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The debate will last half an hour.

Mr. Thorne: In that case I will bring my remarks to a close.
With regard to the material issued by the Central Lancashire Development Corporation, the basis of much of its plan is the concept of economic growth. It is essential for the following questions to be put: For whom is this economic growth? For what? In what way will this economic growth improve the quality of life of this area? In what way will the community be able to participate? They are relevant questions.
I am faced at present with considerable pressure precisely because of the inadequacy of consultation. The pressure now concerns the date for the inquiry which is set for 17th September, a date that gives inadequate time for the people of Preston to make their objections to a plan in the preparation of which they had no opportunity to participate.

12.58 a.m.

Mr. Ronald Atkins: Planners have great powers to shape the urban environment. The majority work conscientiously but their decisions need to be questioned closely and changed when necessary especially after realistic consultations with people who live in the area and whose lives can be made miserable by planning mistakes.
Mistakes have certainly been made, because planning is not an exact science—far from it—based as it is on forecasts that are frequently wrong and on subjective assessments. Planners seem to acknowledge this weakness in the frequency of their changes of view on what constitutes good planning.
When the Central Lancashire New Town was first planned, the fashion in planning was to build towns for the motor car and the Central Lancashire New Town planners worked on those lines. Today planners believe more sensibly that towns are for living in as comfortably and as conveniently as possible, that public transport should be encouraged and that private cars should be discouraged from town centres. That is the view of this House—it was expressed for example, in the 1973 White Paper on urban transport—and of local authorities, including the Preston council.
The Central Lancashire New Town Corporation has made some minor concessions to that point of view, but its urban road plan belongs essentially to the early 1960s whereas it is plans for the twenty-first century that are required in the Preston new town. One example will have to suffice, and that is the Eastern Primary, the building of which, together with its link with the Western Primary, will mean the demolition of many hundreds of badly needed houses in my constituency and the deterioration of hundreds more.
The Eastern Primary is planned to serve a new settlement of thousands of people at Grimsargh. Grimsargh is one mile or less east of the eastern bulge of the M6 motorway where it bypasses Preston. A constituent of mine, questioning the need for this road, asked whether traffic from Grimsargh to Manchester would not be routed via the M6 which is on Grimsargh's doorstep, and the M61 which joins it. He was told that it would not and that traffic would be taken into and then across Preston before it reached the motorway, covering additional mileage, using more fuel and causing additional pollution and congestion in Preston.
The same officer said on Granada Television that, although he personally found it convenient to use the M6 for local journeys, local traffic must be kept off the motorway. This is an extraordinary decision in view of the fact that when the new


town plan was conceived it was for a linear town based on the motorway among other means of communications. Obviously a few years ago the use of the motorway by new town traffic was accepted and was one of the factors in choosing this site.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will use his considerable experience and fine intellect to study the plans, insist that they conform to the views of this House on urban roads, on energy and on land conservation, and break through the thick crust of bureaucracy which separates him from my constituents.

1.2 a.m.

Mr. George Rodgers: I am grateful to have been given an opportunity to say a few words in this debate. As a token of my appreciation, my remarks will be very brief.
It is my view that the Central Lancashire New Town is an exciting and bold concept. It is not simply a concentration of concrete or a suburban sprawl. It contains vision. It will expand and enhance the qualities which already exist in the area. I am a proud advocate of the new town. I believe that it can generate prosperity and halt the sad decline which has been occurring in Lancashire over a long period.
It would be nonsense to voice the virtues of the prospects which lie ahead when we are fortunate enough to have the Minister here to respond to the debate. However, I ought briefly to outline my concerns about the new development.
My initial concern is that the existing local authorities have to meet the provision of a great deal of the initial amenities of the new town. I speak of libraries, clinics and so on. They need a cash inflow to make it possible. Only subsequently will the financial support come, which will be helpful, but in the early stages it is essential that loan sanction should be freely available.
There is a desperate need to generate good will among the people already living in the district, and there must be genuine consultation. The officers of the new town board must have the courage and common sense to concede that they can sometimes be wrong. All the information available to the new town

board should also be available to the public at large in order that they may give evidence at the inquiry in September, which I think is being held very early in the day and does not allow people to accumulate and give evidence by that date.
Our attitude to public transport must be changed in view of the changed circumstances since the outline plan was drawn up. Obviously the fact that the cost of oil has increased enormously must influence us in this direction.
There must be changes in the board membership. It must be expanded and we must recruit people from local government.
There is a multitude of plans for the North-West, the latest being the North-West Strategic Plan. There must be a blending, not a blurring, of people's ideas so that we get a distinctive approach to the selection of the Central Lancashire New Town for area development. We must not be confused by plans which have emerged in recent months. There must be direct involvement by elected members. They must be told to consult the Minister at reasonable intervals. This facility has not been available in the past.
Finally I call on the Minister to utilise the charm and cunning that he no doubt acquired as Chief Whip to persuade the Treasury to look on the area as one ripe for investment, to persuade industry to go there, to persuade civil servants to honour the Hardman Report and generally to persuade people that civilisation does not end at Watford Junction.

1.6 a.m.

The Minister for Planning and Local Government (Mr. John Silkin): I realise that in many ways I am racing the clock, but I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Preston South (Mr. Thorne), Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) and Chorley (Mr. Rodgers) for the interesting points they have raised on the Central Lancashire New Town.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South thought I had not spoken very clearly on housing. I obviously did not speak clearly enough to him, but I think that others have heard my voice. My strong preference and policy is in favour of rented housing, certainly at present, as against housing for sale. I should be an unworthy son of


my father if I did not hold the ideal of the new town very sacred indeed. I will certainly do my best to try to get, to preserve and, in due course, to increase the funds that need to be available to new towns. However, we face a tough economic situation. Therefore, while I may plead, it may not be possible, at any rate at the moment, to get what I want for the Central Lancashire New Town and, indeed, for other new towns.
I strongly believe in the democratic growth of new towns so that eventually they may be handed over to the people who live in their areas. But this is a development stage—in the meantime we must have the development corporation—though, as I see it, it is always a growing matter which is constantly changing until the final result.
I am grateful to my hon. Friends for agreeing on the concept and potential value of this new town which has been mooted since 1958. It has taken a long time in being born, but it is right that it has been born.
The key to the kind of new town we are to have, its rate of development and all that is concerned with it lies in the outline plan. Therefore, I think it would be valuable for me to give the history of the situation.
The draft outline plan was circulated to local authorities and others in November 1973; the road appraisal reports were published in March 1974. The final version of the plan was published on 31st May 1974 and it was formally submitted to the Secretary of State on 3rd June. Although there is no statutory require-

ment, a public inquiry will be held. That has been arranged for 17th September 1974. I know that there is some concern, particularly about the roads mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North. It always is so when one deals with the appraisal of roads, and it is especially so following the Skeffington proposals, because they offer a large number of alternatives.
I now propose to say something about the question of roads, the matter of public participation and, finally, the length of time for the public inquiry. The normal time for an inquiry of this sort has been exceeded by six weeks in this case. Normally the inquiry would have taken place sometime at the end of July, but it will take place on 17th September. There has, therefore, been rather longer than usual, but I make a promise to my hon. Friends.
I am not thinking in terms of deferring the date, but in view of the representations that have been made by my hon. Friends I shall consider this during the next week and take into account all the points that have been made. If I come to the conclusion that there is a case for deferring the inquiry, I shall do so. I am not promising that I shall defer the inquiry, but I am promising that I shall consider the representations that have been made by my hon. Friends. I hope that they will be reasonably satisfied with that.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes past One o'clock.